There was a sound at the door. It opened. There holding a small staff and a bottle of zebra skin, was Smoth Mealer and all the smoth babies. This week’s episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is live! We love our SolidSmack readers! Do you have something cool you’ve come across and want…
This week’s episode of Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is live! Wrap yourself in your Snuggie with a mug of warm yak milk and have yourself a dandy listen! We love our SolidSmack readers! Do you have something cool you’ve come across and want to share it on SolidSmack? Don’t hide it in your…
Suddenly and without warning, you’ve finished that last sip of coffee. Not to worry! With all the energy you can muster, put the cup on your hand, run through the halls and tell everyone of the caffeine-infused goodness absorbed via SolidSmack’s Cool Tools of Doom n’ stuff! Have something cool you’ve come across? Don’t hide…
What magic is this praytell?! The SolidSmack Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is BACK with a vengeance that can only be described as what you would get if you mixed kitteh paws with the lipless howls of a woodland badger… I know, intense and scary and cute all rolled up into 3-minutes of awesome!…
After the last time you wrapped strings of LED’s around your neighbor’s cat and sent it running through the dark shopping isles after pulling the fire alarm, you may be looking for a new, less flea-ridden project to satiate your LED lusts. May I grant you inspiration from Malgorzata Ratajczak and Sebastian Szlabs, the crafters…
What magic is this praytell?! The SolidSmack Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is BACK with a vengeance that can only be described as what you would get if you mixed kitteh paws with the lipless howls of a woodland badger… I know, intense and scary and cute all rolled up into 3-minutes of awesome!…
Remember sitting in the living room when you were little, an old record playing in the background, mom cooking meat pies and the smell of lead solder in the air as your father fried the circuits of your RC car under a shiny pile of metal? If you could, you would have turned the scene…
RichRap out of Gloucester, UK has been colouring his work with a new type of multicolour and multi-material extruder. 3 filaments enter – only one can leave. That sounds like an epic extruder in my book. RichRap’s extruder produce vibrant yet oversaturated coloured prints – not really the fidelity you need to make exact replicas…
I feel privileged to tell you that, not only, do you look fabulous in that new summer jacket/defense system, you have also cause excess perspiration in 80% of the alien super race that was this close to completing their plan for world domination. Good thing you listen to the SolidSmack Cool Tool of Doom n’…
“Brilliant, you say?” Why, it’s only half a cockle shell I’ve fashioned into a sturdy set of gills at the base of my torso. Fortunately, they’re embedded beneath my skin, providing endless amounts of highly concentrated oxygen due to being soaked overnight in the SolidSmack Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff! Have something cool you’ve…
Deep with in the dark crevasses of time, there were other, smaller crevasses and deep within those, there lived a people. A people so furry, they were known only by one name. A name we do not know. Anyway, they lived rich and bountifully off the land, all thanks to the SolidSmack Cool Tools of…
The battle raged on. All the small onion people had skinned their last layer, leaving nothing but their tender underbellies ripe for the squeezing. Fortunately for them, they were joined by the herbaceous chive, the sharp scallion, the assertive garlic–ripe, juicy and subscribers to the Cool Tools podcast. Have something cool you’ve come across? Don’t…
When you thought that mossleaf tepee was the best idea in the world, then met it’s doom to a herd of wild boar searching for your hidden cask of clover honey, just remember, SolidSmack was there to help with the finest concoction of useful resources, tool and DIY you have yet to see… for the…
The shards of glass have been tossed in the air. You have but 5 seconds to roll across the floor to the protection of your desk, escaping the falling glass and weeks of applying bandages to the small, uncomfortable gashes. The SolidSmack Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff is here to help. Have something cool…
Yep, we’ve looked at our stats. There are, in fact, a few Solidsmack readers in the frozen wastelands of Canada. If you were in my neighbourhood, and you like making things, you might have dropped into Vancouver’s mini-Maker Faire. Mini it was not! Hundreds of makers and vendors descended upon the Pacific National Exhibition grounds…
As you gaze far off into the distance, a quiet rumble begins. The tremor is felt through the ground. Your ear hairs quiver. Your nostrils quake. Then suddenly, like a caffeinated clown exploding amidst a plume of fire, it appears, the SolidSmack Cool Tools of Doom n’ Stuff. Have something cool you’ve come across? Don’t…
Rock and roll is here to stay… and so is the new Cool Tools of Doom n’ stuff! We received some letters (sent to ourselves from across town) saying how helpful the resources and sites are. We’ve got a whole new pack of sites spanning graphics, apparel and DIY to make your life way more…
It’s here! I’m doomed, you’re doomed, we are all DOOMED! Doomed to use a whole bucket of cool tools and apps for design, DIY and so much more. This is a brand new feature for SolidSmack (replacing the Weekly Update) providing you with resources to make being an incredibly creative person more enjoyable. Each week…
This is what I would truly call ‘a 3D movie.’ This ‘3Drehkino’ is a series of 3D printed figures of a man walking. An LED is triggered by each passing figure in his appropriate pose, illuminating it and giving us the illusion of motion. Tobias Krawutschke designs all kinds of Zoetropes (which you can see here),…
In the realm of stylish SHTF fashion, it’s unlikely you’ll have a lot of choices. Fortunately, given the proper society ending event, there will be plenty of unnecessary road signage lining the untraveled streets. Just snag a couple or five and you’re all set to make colorful shielding to warn any would be attacker that…
Moving dirt. Mixing concrete. Inspiring people. Not something you want to do with a spoon, a bucket and lots of screaming. Especially when your goal is to create entire civilizations from scratch. Typically, you would need a few dozers, a backhoe or three and a lot more money to throw at materials and manufacturing equipment.…
You know that burning sensation, the one where you dump crunchy granules of fertilizer all over yourself after the spreader explodes? Yeah, that one. What to do? You’re stuck because you want to finish feeding the nitrogen-depleted grass blades, but can’t. Your afternoon plans have been foiled yet again. Well, there’s no better time to…
Every once in a while, something so cool comes along that it makes you stop whittling that sopping wet piece of MDF and stab the jack knife right in your leg meat. This is one of those things. Today, FurnLab has launched their Open Source CNC project on Kickstarter. Headed up by Jeffrey Matthias, they’re…
Why mess with printing petroleum-based plastic when there are whole deserts full of sand? Markus Kayser’s Solar Sinter Project converted a hot dog cart constructed a 3D printer that uses a giant Fresnel lens to sinter sand into 3D glass objects. Done as part of his MA studies at the Royal College of Art. There…
Yesterday, Autodesk gained the upper hand in the CAD industry by now being able to say, “Here’s how to bake a helicopter cake and a paper catapult with which to launch it into the air.” Autodesk has acquired DIY project site and passionate user community Instructables in an all out effort to seal their takeover…
Metrix Create: Space – a collective of evil geniuses in Seattle Washington – recently posted their first results out of their current project, Big Robot. It’s an old CNC machine repurposed to carry a scaled up version of the plastic extruder from the RepRap open source 3D printer project. Aside from being built from mostly…
Ever built a CNC machine? I have. You never, ever hit your budget. Usually it’s because you don’t count on shipping costs or having to deal with sourcing hardware/parts from many different distributors. If you’re trying to recreate a project from instructables, you obviously missed the part where the author failed to mention he spent years…
The design process is something we absolutely CRAVE here at SolidSmack. You can throw up pretty pictures all day, but going behind the scenes and getting an idea of the work and thought that goes into a design… simply wonderful. This is a perfect example. Jonathan Bergqvist wanted to have a shoulder mount for his…
Look out folks, there’s a CNC storm a’comin’. A wee, cute little storm of laser cut, three-axis THUNDER! It’s the DIYLILCNC and it is so lil’ you’ll want to build it, give it a hug and then command it to do your gantry-mounted bidding! In the same open-source artery as the Makerbot 3D Printer, Chris…
Interested in making something via the Ponoko rapid prototyping design site, but not quite sure about how to go about it? You’re in luck, they’ve just release a new service called Ponoko ID that allows you to request a design. You list a price, its sent to some designer and after one has picked it,…
I know, it’s only Tuesday and you’re saying, “Yeeeeah, I typically take my inspiration on Fridays – Thursdays at the earliest to knock some of thoooose projects out over the weekend, m’kay? thanks.” But folks, this just can’t wait, I tell you, and will probably get you through the week completely distracted by your potential……