Awesome Hacks

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.

We learned from Mythbusters just how versatile duct tape can be. But here’s one use we never thought of – making a spare tire out of the sticky stuff. Life OD tried just that with surprisingly usable results. Unfortunately, it cost more to make than buying a cheap rubber tire.

“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.

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.

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.

Giaco Whatever has an extensive history of making dangerous items. So leave it to him to transform a normally safe kid’s NERF gun into a deadly weapon, thanks to the pressure generated liquid nitrogen expanding inside the gun at room temperature. Kablam at 22:16.

Software developer Kazuya Noshiro shows off a nifty trick he pulled off using the iPhone X’s cameras which allows the user to camouflage their face against the background, making them appear to be invisible.

There are lots of cool lightsaber replicas you can buy right now, but those ones just light up. The Hacksmith set about making a brightly glowing blade that can actually cut and burn things. Watch it heat up and start a fire at 12:38.

Make: author Caleb Kraft came across this nifty plaything by Mike’s Electric Stuff, which uses sensors and a cylindrical grid of LEDs that simulate falling snow or sand as it’s flipped end-over-end. Mike needs to turn this thing into a toy you can buy. He’d sell thousands.

Got a broken washing machine and some woodworking skills? Then check out Scrap Wood City’s clip in which he shows how to convert the metal tub from a washing machine into the body for a fretless acoustic contrabass. It’s only got two strings, but it still sounds cool.

A while back, The Backyard Scientist built a massive mousetrap and used it to smash things. He decided to take all of the energy stored up in that giant spring and use it to drive an axle. Unfortunately, it seems as if its power should be measured in mousepower, not horsepower.

YouTuber Roadie fabricated a nifty motorized skateboarding rig that allows its rider to glide efforlessly (if not exactly quickly) along railroad tracks. Needless to say, don’t try this idea at home unless you’re 100% certain the rails are abandoned like the ones shown here.