Backyard ski lift

If you own a cabin in the mountains of British Columbia what do you do during the warmer summer months? Well, we’d probably mix of a cocktail and string up a hammock, but [Darrin] is quite a bit more motivated. He planned for the snowy season by building his own ski lift. He shared the details in a forum post, … Read the rest

Automated squinting instead of glasses, contacts, or lasik

[Lee] is nearsighted and has had it with contacts and glasses. When trying to figure out an alternative, he looked at the core of the problem. The eye is not shaped correctly and therefore cannot focus adequately. The solution is to change the shape of the lens. This is exactly what lasik (laser eye surgery) does, but instead of going … Read the rest

Heatless compressed air dryer

The pressurized air from a standard air compressor is fine for most uses. But some applications like plasma cutting call for low-humidity air and the hardware available to facilitate this can cost a bundle. [Roland] and his cohorts at TX/RX Labs (a Houston, Texas Hackerspace) just built this air drying system.

It works using a desiccant; a substance that … Read the rest

CNC milled bicycle frame jig

This bicycle frame jig is cut from MDF. It’s the latest in a growing trend that we love to see: the increasing availability of manufacturing techniques for the common hacker. This is a Kickstarter project, and alas it appears the designs are not available for you to cut your own. But we love the potential this shows, and maybe … Read the rest

Android 3.1 devices have USB host mode. Here’s how to use it.

With the coming of Android 3.1 you finally have the option of using the device as a USB host. This may be through a USB OTG (On-the-Go) adaptor, but nonetheless it’s a feature which was sorely missed until now. [Manuel] put together a guide on using Android as a USB host. As you can see, his example hardware is … Read the rest

Projection screen using latex paint and sand blasting beads

This method of building your own projection screen is new to us. [Sean Michael Ragan] ran across some sand blasting material made up of minuscule glass beads at Harbor Freight and inspiration struck. He purchased a fifty-pound bag and set out to see if it could be used with regular latex paint to create a projection screen. The answer … Read the rest

Up your FPGA game by learning from this LCD control prototype

[Cesar] recently got a PSP display up and running with his FPGA development board. That’s a nice project, but what we really like is that he set aside a lot of time to show how it’s done every step of the way. This isn’t just a tutorial on that particular screen, but an overview of the skill set needed … Read the rest