Hacks

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

“If this thing is even remotely rideable… I will be shocked.” Punmaker and stuffmaker Colin Furze’s latest crazy creation is a bicycle that has a frame made out of giant springs instead of standard tubes. It’s a stupid, nonsensical, and impractical build, and that’s why we love it.

Cosplayer and steampunk gadget maker Frisk P shows off an awesome NERF blaster hack. By adding a spinning Phantom LED wand that pops out of its front, the gadget casts a Doctor Strange-like holographic spell in mid-air using a persistence of vision illusion.

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.

The guys from YouTube channel FliteTest love to make all kinds of crazy R/C flying machines, and their latest build is a doozie. They managed to convert a wooden chair from IKEA into an airplane that reliably flies. Lift-off at 7:13.

NERF modder Coop772 combined three Rival Nemesis blasters into a tripod-mountable turret that’s perfect for the old spray-and-pray tactic. Thanks to a custom hopper on top, the triple gun can rapidly load up to 1200 rounds with minimal user intervention.

Photographer Kensuke Koike shows off a neat trick you can do with any image on heavy paper and a pasta maker. By shredding the picture into strips, the image can be duplicated into progressively lower resolution versions of itself.

Is that little lighter in your pocket not doing a very good job getting the fire started? Check out the jumbo-sized 500,000 BTU lighter that BrainfooTV made. Since it’s more flamethrower than Bic lighter, we don’t recommend trying to light your cigarettes with it.

Simone Giertz and William Osman teamed up to do something stupid and silly. They took Simone’s goofy Citicar and turned it into a giant computer mouse. Driving and steering controls the cursor, while honking the horn is a click. It totally sucks, but that’s what we expected.

The Beyond the Press channel took a powerful Gardner Denver air compressor and connected it up to a simple rig they built for firing tennis balls. It isn’t particularly accurate, but we still wouldn’t want to be on the business end of this thing. Test firing starts at 4:15, but it gets better.

Laser engravers use powerful laser beams to burn designs into wood and other materials. But when Make Anything’s flatbed engraver broke, he decided to take its laser head and turn it into a handheld writing instrument. It’s not the safest thing on Earth, but it is cool.

After building himself an airplane, Peter Sripol decided to make himself something a little less ambitious, but just as fun – a tricked-out sled that can glide across the snow thanks to an airplane propeller on the back. It’s not exactly fast, but it lets him go sledding without a hill.

Did you break the tip on your pencil again? You could go for one of those fancy mechanical pencils, or you could rig up a pencil sharpener like the one Giaco Whatever hacked together – using a 1000cc two-stroke engine to spin the sharpener up to speed.

Not content to just sit around in a tub in the bathroom, The Real Life Guys rigged up a flying machine in which its pilot hangs out in a bathtub. We’re having a hard time believing this, but they’d have to be amazing VFX artists to fake this so well. More here.