It’s easy to burn 5,000 matchsticks to the ground, but you know what isn’t easy? Making a 600-piece home for your pet. Rather than going to a pet shop to buy one, YouTube creator The Q did just this to build a new home for his pet rat. Using tongue depressors for the “2x4s”, The Q is able to quickly and easily cut each piece into a variety of shapes to suit the final design. By cutting out the rounded ends, for example, he glues together many sticks to make the house’s foundation. Many supports crafted from glued full-length sticks and wooden pieces help keep the foundation upright. With the…

Most designers and engineers already know that Arduino is a powerful and versatile platform for creating electronics projects. Yet, knowing where to dive into learning about the powerful little computer isn’t quite so easy. From building robots to adding a little IoT intelligence into weekend projects, the Pay What You Want: 2018 Arduino Enthusiast E-Book Bundle is the perfect place to begin broadening your horizons in the world of Arduino. The project-based approach presented in the course teaches users how to create everything from DC motor controllers operated by a web page, slide switch, or touch sensors to constructing electronic operating status displays for just about anything. Best of all,…

From his tribute to the Commodore PET 2001 to a visual synthesizer for building fractal patterns, Swedish designer Love Hultén is a master at combining age-old wood crafting techniques with modern(ish) tech. Inspired by his passions for both traditional craftsmanship and modern technology, the Gothenburg-based designer is capable of commanding thousands of dollars for each of his own-of-a-kind midcentury-inspired pieces—and rightfully so. https://youtu.be/LBCk19o1CYk For his latest endeavor, Hultén turned his attention to the origins of video gaming with the OriginX—his tribute to the Pong video game cabinet, which helped establish the video game industry in 1972. Built with a walnut housing and featuring a control panel made with aluminum, the…

How small can a foosball table get before it’s at the border between highly-enjoyable and ridiculously annoying? About this small. Florian Bommier has created and shared a super small 6-on-6 foosball (aka table football) table that pits you against your opponent/spouse/friend in a race to see who can restrain themselves from twisting the small plastic frame into a heap and tossing it off the highest point you can quickly climb to. Florian created it to celebrate–you guessed it–THE WORLD CUP, with rumors that he played against himself nine times and tied every match. Shootout! He scores! He scores! HE SCORES!! There isn’t much detail on the print, but altogether it’s…

We’ve all seen our fair share of chain domino videos. By stringing together a bunch of blocks in an orderly (or disorderly) fashion, you can cause a chain reaction just by pushing one single domino. You’ve seen one. I’ve seen one. Heck, it doesn’t even take much to stack up a bunch of flat blocks to make your domino chain reaction. But what if you stacked something more dangerous than a pile of dominoes? Say, a pile of highly combustible matchsticks? This is the spin YouTube creator BLACKHAND has put on the classic and oddly satisfying pastime. Unlike dominoes which can stand on their own, matchsticks require balance and a…

We’ve said it time and time again, but the Raspberry Pi is just so dang cool and we believe all designers and engineers should have one in their toolkit—if not on their desktop. While there is a bit of a slight learning curve, it’s nothing that today’s designers and engineers can’t handle on a leisurely Saturday. So why not start now? The Raspberry Pi Mastery Bundle includes 8 courses to get started creating your very own Amazon Echo or even a KUKA-like robotic arm for your desktop (how’s that for office bragging rights). Throw in any of your own 3D printed housing designs, and the opportunities are limitless! For a…