Imagine it. Your baby daughter innocently breaks a piece off your son’s model airplane causing sibling rivalry to flare out of control. No problem, go online to the Revel website, pay .99 for the replacement, download the 3D file and hit print. In less time than it takes to drink a cup of java, you have a replacement part ready to reinstall, and his plane “flies” again.
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Sure, you want to make an affordable robotic/networked/embedded linux/mechatronix platform.

But, then you say to yourself,, “Self,, where would I find such a thing?”

Charmed Labs is where, and QWERK is what you’re looking for.

Their friends at the Carnegie-Mellon Robotics Institute have developed the TeRK Telepresence Robot Kit it uses theQwerk base units to operate.

They’ve got a great page that has robots you can make, tells you what tools and parts you need exactly, and even where to get them! It’s great!!

Finally people have a shot at making useful, powerful robotic applications at a small scale, and learning how to go about it for a “reasonable” price (let’s face it, sometimes 349.00$ is a tad harder to come by than we want to admit, especially for you brainiac younglings). Read the rest of this entry »

Nick did a very cool post about where you could download free DIY paper plans for various Star Wars ships, I’ve just had an email from Robert of Smidigt to share with us that there are also plans for the various characters, they’ve got Stormtroopers, Boba Fett and of course Vadar himself. Read the rest of this entry »

Pass me the sick bucket, this has got to be the soppiest DIY project yet, the everlasting kisses kit.

This craft kit lets you make fridge magnets that are an exact replica of your pouting lips, I suppose it does mean you can smother your beer fridge with the kisses it probably deserves.

You can get you own everlasting kisses kit from Boutique to You, sick bag not included.

The site I found this next DIY gadget on has my name written all over it, the perpetual kid and it’s DIY finger tapping kit.

For $7.99 you get a pre-cut and pre-creased hit that lets you make your own thing like hand, twist the arm at the side and watch it’s fingers do the walking (well tapping).

If you’ve ever fancied making your kids their own designer furniture now you can and what’s better is it’s completely free (and a great excuse to buy a new plasma purely for the box).

The furniture has been designed by some Swiss architect known as Nicola Enrico Stäubli. There are three differenet pieces to make:

1. Stool
2. Chair
3. Rocker

Each piece looks pretty sturdy and should take anything from 3.5 hours to make (looks like my Saturday afternoon is taken care of). You can download the full PDF plans over here for free (which is just really cool though they do require an email address). Which you’ll need to print out and then follow the instructions.

Fold School found via Inhabitat thanks Emily.

This is such a simple idea but so very useful. The MagnoGrip, a magnetic wristband.

Ok it won’t give you super human powers like Magneto but when it comes to carrying screws, nails, nuts and bolts it certainly beats using your teeth. As I’m currently neglecting renovating my house the MagnoGrip could of saved me so many trips up and down the ladder (as well as chipped teeth).

You can get hold of the MagnoGrip from Think Geek for $14.99.

Hacking about with hardware is generally more a past time for the hardcore geek (Jani for example ), Chumby however could change that with there easy to hack and modify LCD mini machine.
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