This article appeared in Make: Vol 94. Subscribe for more great projects. In 8th grade, Todd Moyer fell in love with making after combining a shop class assignment — a little gadget that varied a lightbulb’s voltage in response to audio signals — with his home stereo and some Christmas lights, turning his room into a disco club. “The exhilaration I felt was not just from pretty lights and music, but the feeling of empowerment that came...
This article appeared in Make: Vol 94. Subscribe for more great projects. Over five decades ago, in 1973, DJ Kool Herc changed music forever by using two turntables, each playing the same record, with a mixer to switch between them, in order to extend percussion breaks indefinitely. In the 1980s the “failure” of Roland’s TR-808 to successfully emulate a real drummer was embraced by hiphop and techno pioneers who used its synthetic sound as the bedrock to...
This article appeared in Make: Vol. 90. Subscribe for more maker projects and articles! When I tell people that 3D printing has come a very long way, it’s hard to judge just exactly what I mean. But as a child of the 80s, a Transformer seems to me a fitting ultimate test of the quality of 3D printer. Aaron Leaman, aka Dr Operator, has been producing delightful, quirky, and unique 3D-printed Transformers for over a...
This article appeared in Make: Vol. 90. Subscribe for more maker projects and articles! Tamara Kostianovsky’s fabric-based sculptures convey all the passions and emotions of a mainstream marble masterpiece and then some, befitting her colorful specialty in the medium of the flesh, dead carcasses, and natural rejuvenation. Kostianovsky, an Argentine-American artist who has presented many solo exhibitions across the United States and Europe, continues to use her formal training from the Pennsylvania Academy of the Fine...
This article appeared in Make: Vol 92. Subscribe for more great projects. When Chris Mosley was in elementary school, he was the kid who was always behind in his work. While other students dutifully read in class, he got in trouble for drawing because he was more interested in creating his own stories than reading someone else’s. Fast-forward to today, and the creativity that got him in trouble as a kid now enables him to flourish as...
This article is from Make Vol. 73! Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out on any of our awesome builds. The video zooms in on what looks like a standard power outlet wall plate. Then a hand reaches into frame and opens the outlet like a tiny doorway to reveal a detailed miniature living space replete with illuminated desktop computer, microwave, blinking router lights, mini-mini fridge, and everything else you’d expect to find in...
This article is from Make Vol. 73! Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out on any of our awesome builds. The term “paper mâché” brings up fond memories of youthful summer camp projects — strips of newspaper dipped in paste, layered on top of a balloon, face, or cardboard model, then left to harden and be painted. Those resulting oblong balls, lumpy masks, and indeterminate piñatas should be familiar to us all. The centuries-old medium...
This article is from Make Vol. 73! Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out on any of our awesome builds. Delicate. Soulful. Evocative. These aren’t typically the terms you hear us throw around when we speak of a blacksmith’s work. However, this artist is anything but typical. Ellen Durkan, known as Iron Maiden Forge, has been creating elaborate and mesmerizing works of fashion that are born from hot steel on the anvil. At...
This article is from Make Vol. 71! Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out on any of our awesome builds. Here’s another great project from the Make: archives. According to Karina Olsen, the biggest mistake you can make in welding class is telling your instructor that you’re finished early. “Once the instructor knows that you need more work, they will find random, ungraded projects for you to do until your classmates catch up with...
This article appeared in Make: Vol. 71! Subscribe now to make sure you don’t miss out on any of our awesome builds. When Brooklyn, NY-based musician Phillip Stearns found circuit bending, he started experimenting with all kinds of art, branching out from audio into visual, then ultimately into textiles. That one tool, the ability to modify electronics hardware to create things from the resultant glitches, led to his endeavor called Glitch Textiles. “The project started...
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