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Awesome Hacks

Phone Ringer Rhythm Machine

Phone Ringer Rhythm Machine

The guys from Electronicos Fantasticos! are no strangers to making electronic music with unusual instruments. Here, they show off a custom-built instrument that clangs the bell of an old-school rotary telephone with a circuit controlled by a Korg SQ-1 step sequencer. Now they need to rig the dial with a motor and amplify its clicks.

Building a Massive Portable Power Bank

Building a Massive Portable Power Bank

If you search around on Amazon, you can find some pretty big portable power banks. But Handy Geng needs more milliamp hours of power, so he got to building this enormous power pack that has batteries totaling 27,000,000 mAh (or 27,000 amp-hours) of power output. And yes, it’s still portable, kinda.

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Playing the Saxocone

Playing the Saxocone

Musician Michael Wilbur of the band Moon Hooch shows off some of the fantastically fuzzy bass notes you can make by stuffing a tall traffic cone into the bell of a saxophone. And that’s not the only way that you can make funky saxocone music.

Flamethrower Headlights

Flamethrower Headlights

Are you sick and tired of people driving too slow in the passing lane? Perhaps this will convince them to move over. This Russian mechanic modded a Lada, replacing its headlights with a pair of road-clearing flamethrowers. We can only hope that it’s operated by honking the horn.

Electric Scooter Auto Gate

Electric Scooter Auto Gate

Handy Geng was tired of getting off of his scooter to open the gates to his workshop, so he decided to motorize one of them. Rather than use an off-the-shelf motor, he rigged up a mount and attached his scooter to do the work. Now he needs to buy a second scooter to ride through the gate. English subtitles available.

Making a Piano BBQ Cart

Making a Piano BBQ Cart

Handy Geng is back with another one of his crazy inventions that nobody asked for – a combination barbeque grill cart and electric piano. As he plays each key on the piano, it rotates a skewer of meat over its charcoal pit, ensuring its cooked evenly on each side. Oh, and it drives. English captions available, but not necessary.

Fishing Reel Hurdy-Gurdy

Fishing Reel Hurdy-Gurdy

A hurdy-gurdy is a musical instrument that makes sounds by rubbing a spinning bow against its strings. Vinheteiro made a low-budget approximation of the instrument by combining a fishing reel with an acoustic guitar. His version only has one string, and the sound it produces is like a kind of traditional Asian music.

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DIY Ultra-Bright Outdoor TV

DIY Ultra-Bright Outdoor TV

If you’ve ever tried to watch TV outdoors, you know that the picture washes out in the sun. DIY Perks shows us how he built a custom outdoor TV by hacking a grid of bright LED lighting onto the back of an LCD panel recycled from a broken TV. To keep it from overheating, he built a water-cooling system using a pump and a car radiator.

Big Mouth Billy Beetlejuice

Big Mouth Billy Beetlejuice

The scene in Beetlejuice where the Maitland’s possess the dinner party and make their unwanted houseguests sing “Day-O” is a classic. Now imagine if the same thing happened to a school of Big Mouth Billy Basses, and you’d have this video. You’re welcome.

The 14-Wheel Lada

The 14-Wheel Lada

So what could be better than a crappy old Italian car with eight wheels? How about an even crappier old Russian car with six more wheels? Thanks to the insane minds at Garage 54, your dream has come true – assuming that dream includes six axles and giant tractor wheels on front.

7200-Segment Display

7200-Segment Display

Numeric displays typically have seven segments. Artist and engineer Chris Combs linked together 288 four-digit displays for a total 7200 segments once you factor in the colons. It can be programmed to show large digits or other moving images. It’s on display at VisArts’ Concourse Gallery in Rockville, MD through 10.17.21.

Skittle Pixel8r

Skittle Pixel8r

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.

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Wooden Nintendo Switch

Wooden Nintendo Switch

After winning more eBay auctions than he expected to, modder Peter Knetter had some extra Nintendo Switch handhelds lying around. So he took one of them and gave it a complete makeover – covering its plastic case and buttons with wood ones. It’s definitely thicker and heavier than the original, but it’s certainly unique.

The Teletubby Tidal Wave

The Teletubby Tidal Wave

After building an organ out of Furbies and an orchestra out of LEGO, musical hacker Look Mum No Computer has unveiled his latest creation, an army of interconnected Teletubbies who wiggle and giggle in sync thanks to a custom controller system. The sound of 30 Pos and LaLas is just as annoying as you might imagine.

The Un-Toaster

The Un-Toaster

Don’t you sometimes wish there was an “Undo” key for life’s mistakes? While this invention from Joel Creates doesn’t reverse any major tragedies, it is capable of un-toasting bread that you didn’t mean to toast. It’s more of a bread rehydrator than a toast time-travel machine though.

Could You Stop Rain with a Jump Rope?

Could You Stop Rain with a Jump Rope?

If you spun a jump rope fast enough, would it be possible to shield yourself from the rain? I did a thing wanted to know the answer, so he did some math and got to work building a terrifying-looking machine intending to spin a rope fast enough to stay dry under its arc.

Automatic Hair Scissors

Automatic Hair Scissors

If you’re not careful, you can cut yourself while trimming hair with scissors. But in the case of these automatic shears made by Joel Creates, you’re practically guaranteed that you’ll draw blood. He then gave the terrifying motorized scissors to a hairdresser to see how they worked in the hands of a professional.

Turning Bread into Bacon

Turning Bread into Bacon

Inspired by a Tik Tok video by RJ the Magician, Vegan chef Sauce Stache wanted to see if the faux bacon he showed off really tasted like the smoky meat. The recipe involves soaking thin strips of bread in sauces and spices then pan-frying them. Of course, you’ve just traded fats and protein for fats and carbs.

Barcode Skateboarding

Barcode Skateboarding

As we’ve seen and heard before, Electronicos Fantasticos! love to make music using barcodes. They recently rigged up a couple of skateboards with barcode readers and circuitry under their decks, covered floors and ramps with black-and-white patterns, then took a little ride.

Floppy Drive Video Demo

Floppy Drive Video Demo

Back in the 1980s, the demoscene was all about creating cool motion visuals and music using the computers of the day. Engineer Matthias Kramm figured out a way to create an old-school demo without a computer by hacking the output of an old Commodore 1541 floppy drive into a video signal. More details on his blog.

Leslie Speaker Guitar

Leslie Speaker Guitar

Look Mum No Computer adds to his collection of unusual musical instruments with a custom guitar that has a Leslie Speaker as its body. These vintage performance speakers had a motorized baffle which created a unique analog warble. In a second video, he added a Perspex enclosure and a Doppler effect.

Making a Waterjet Skateboard

Making a Waterjet Skateboard

Motorized wheels aren’t the only way to make a self-propelled skateboard. Integza shows us how he built a 3D-printed water pump to propel a skateboard. After a couple of failed attempts, he was able to get enough water flowing to move the skateboard. It seems to be more effective as a water gun than as a skateboard.

Giant Working Lighter

Giant Working Lighter

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. Be sure to check out the build video.

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