Hacks

Do you have an old flat-screen TV or monitor with a broken LCD panel? DIY Perks shows us how you could use it to fake daylight in any room. By upcycling its fresnel light diffuser, and swapping out the LEDs, you can create a smooth and bright light source that can convincingly simulate a window or skylight.

Maker Ivan Miranda’s decided to see if he could modify a remote-controlled car so it can drive upside-down on the ceiling. He added a pair of powerful fans to create downforce (or is it upforce?) It took some trial and error, but he ultimately got it to work. Of course, he could have just bought one of these.

This bit of geeky fun comes courtesy of builder JohnO3, who created a machine which works like a giant dot-matrix printer. Except in this case, it deposits colorful and tangy Skittles to create its prints instead of droplets of ink. He provided the full build details on Instructables, should you want to build your own candy printer.

Look Mum No Computer has been working on and off for over a year on this incredibly complicated electronic music maker, a wall full of Nintendo Game Boys which work in perfect sync to produce richly-layered polyphonic chiptunes. It’s still not finished, but even as a work in progress, it’s still quite impressive.

If you’re not too much a stickler for preserving your vinyl, there are lots of cheap turntable options. But if you REALLY don’t want to spend the money, and REALLY don’t care about your records, you could build one like the one Turnah81 made, using a cordless drill, a coffee cup, and a pushpin as a stylus.

Maker Ivan Miranda played around with a couple of NERF Rival Kronos blasters and decided that he could do it better. So he set about building a gigantic, vacuum-powered version that can fire of 10 rounds of ammo per second, at speeds over 62mph. We wish he made it fire actual NERF ammo though.

Device Orchestra previously amused audiences with music played on credit card terminals. Now, they’ve figured out a way to make electric toothbrushes into musical instruments. Sit back and enjoy a buzzy rendition of Jean Sibelius’ Finlandia Hymn, a popular composition in the nation the band calls home.

Despite its age, people are still obsessed with MineCraft, and experimenting to see what else they can do with the block-building game. SethBling spent innumerable hours creating a chest inside of the game, that when opened, contains an completely playable version of MineCraft inside of itself. Download here.

Grind Hard Plumbing Co. took a Barbie Power Wheels Mustang and hopped it with a Honda dirt bike engine up so its power and speed match its muscle car looks. Sure, it’s basically a go-kart with a plastic body now, but it’s still awesome and we want to take it for a ride.

Kiwami Japan takes a momentary break from crafting knives from unusual materials to make a pair of jumbo-size scissors. He started off with a couple of cheap $1 kitchen knives, but ended up with the sharpest kitchen shears we’ve ever seen.

A Bentley Continental GT is already quite the impressive vehicle, but it wasn’t enough for Kosik of AcademeG to leave well enough alone, and decided to upgrade his with tank treads. You can check out the full build log for this beast on their YouTube channel. Turn captions on.

Car hacker Master Milo decided to take an old Ford Ka and give it new life as a thrill ride. By slicing it up, adding a roll cage, and setting it into a set of round tracks, he transformed the subcompact car into a dizzying ride for two. Check out Milo’s original video here.

Automotive madman Jimmy Built managed to cram the drive unit from a Tesla Model S and the battery pack from a Chevy Volt into an old Honda Accord. The result is a crazy lightweight car that can do 0-to-60 in about 2.7 sec, and sounds like a remote-controlled toy doing it.

Ukrainian band Brunettes Shoot Blondes found an old, broken down grand piano, and decided to partially gut it, filling its innards with a variety of analog instruments, mechanically connected to its keys. The resulting sound on their track Houston is remarkably rich and full.

After turning a bathtub into a drone, The Real Life Guys decided to see if they could cram a 15hp electric motor into a little kid’s car known as a BIG Bobbycar. The result is a ridiculously unsafe and unstable ride that zooms from 0 to 43 mph in about 3 seconds. Turn subtitles on.

Instructables contributor Mikeasaurus shows off his ridiculously dangerous looking creation, a skateboard which leaves a fiery trail in its wake. It drips out a small amount of fuel triggered by a foot-controlled switch, and ignites it with an electric sparker. Full build log here.

For no other possible reason than to create nightmare fuel, modder Sam Battle of Look Mum No Computer rewired 44 individual Furbys and programmed them to do his bidding, creating a nightmarish organ that emits the song of the damned when he tickles its ivories.

Getting toast out of the toaster can be an exercise in frustration. Madman Colin Furze knows this all too well, and has the ultimate solution. His latest build ensures the toast is ejected well above the top of the toaster, ensuring no more burnt fingers.

The Mercedes G-Class (aka the “G-Wagon”) is a boxy and rugged military-style vehicle. We’ve seen lots of them over the years, but never one quite like this – a fully-drivable vehicle with a body made out of ice. The frozen ride was made by Garage 54 of Novosibirsk, Russia.

For no other reason than to prove that it could be done, I Did a Thing ripped apart a perfectly good bicycle, and turned it into a pedal-powered circular saw. It seems to us more like some sort of torture device out of a horror movie than a useful power tool thogh.

Weapon maker Joerg Sprave is always up for a challenge. When the makers of the game War Robots asked him if he’d build a robot, he obliged them with the world’s deadliest vacuum cleaner – which carries and fires a Glock. Never yell at this robot for missing a spot!

Want to shoot those smooth side-to-side shots that you see in pro videos? You could go out and buy a fancy slider, or you could follow COOPH’s handy guide on how to make an automated slider using ordinary household objects like a toy car and a kitchen timer.

Given the fact that 95% of all of the mail we get is junk we love the idea that Colin Furze came up with – a mailbox that automatically shreds anything delivered into it – including thick catalogs, cardboard packaging, and possibly the mailman’s hand.

What you’re looking at may look like an old dot-matrix printer – but it’s been turned into a musical instrument by Midi Desaster. By manipulating the print heads, it plays music – in this case, some classic Foo Fighters. More printer tunes here.

Destroyer of things Daved Windestal built a totally insane RC car. By attaching a powerful model rocket engine to the middle of a HobbyKing Desert Fox racer, it’s able to jump over obstacles without a ramp. Perhaps a parachute would be a good addition next time.

Allen Pan of Sufficiently Advanced teamed up with fellow engineering geek Junie Genius to create the ultimate anger management device – a head-mounted gadget that shoots flames whenever its wearer lets out a shout. Nope, this thing doesn’t seem dangerous at all.

VW turned up to Pike’s Peak this year and broke the course record with their I.D. R EV. Prior to the race, the automaker challenged Mark Rober and William Osman to collect a little extra energy for their their supercar. We like to think the citrus power made the difference.

Maker Becky Stern decided to create something none of us actually need, but is still immensely entertaining – a rolling robot made out of a baguette loaded with a wobbler circuit. It rolls along as you try to catch it, making it nearly impossible to spread butter and jam on it.

Artist Benedetto Bufalino transformed a Ford Mondeo station wagon into a fully-functional wood-burning pizza oven. The interior features a brick cooking surface, making quick and crispy traditional Italian pizzas. We’re assuming he removed the gas tank too.

Morfors.dk is used to speeding up their remote controlled cars by putting more powerful motors into them, so they tried the same idea with a paper shredder, replacing the stock motor with a 44,000 RPM brushless motor. We wish they came from OfficeDepot this way.