A Throne For LEGO Baron Harkonnen

If you’re both a LEGO and a Dune fan, unless you’ve been living in a cave on Mars with your eyes shut and fingers in your ears, you’re probably aware that LEGO released a set for …

Sealed Packs Of Pokémon Cards Give Up Their Secrets Without Opening Them

[Ahron Wayne] succeeded in something he’s been trying to accomplish for some time: figuring out what’s inside a sealed Pokémon card packet without opening it. There’s a catch, how…

You Can Build A Little Car That Goes Farther Than You Push It

Can you build a car that travels farther than you push it? [Tom Stanton] shows us that you can, using a capacitor and some nifty design tricks. [Tom]’s video shows us the construction of a sm…

Model Rocket Nails Vertical Landing After Three-Year Effort

Model rocketry has always taken cues from what’s happening in the world of full-scale rockets, with amateur rocketeers doing their best to incorporate the technologies and methods into their …

A Trip Down Electronic Toy Memory Lane

Like many of us, [MIKROWAVE1] had a lot of electronic toys growing up. In a video you can watch below, he asks the question: “Did electronic toys influence your path?” Certainly, for us…

LEGO Bricks: Now Out Of This World

Now the eyes of space explorers are turned once more towards the Moon, there are a whole host of new engineering challenges facing engineers working on lunar missions. One such challenge relates to…

Electronic Etch-A-Sketch, No Microcontroller Required

In a lot of ways, Etch-A-Sketch is the perfect toy; simple, easy to use, creative, endlessly engaging, and as a bonus, it’s completely mechanical. We find that last attribute to be a big part…

RC Batwing Actually Flies

Batman is a compelling superhero for enough reasons that he’s been a cultural force for the better part of a century. His story has complex characters, interesting explorations of morality, i…

An Enigma Machine Built In Meccano

As far as model construction sets go, LEGO is by far the most popular brand for building not only pre-planned models but whatever the builder can imagine. There are a few others out there though, s…

A LEGO CNC Pixel Art Generator

If you are ever lucky enough to make the trip to Bilund in Denmark, home of LEGO, you can have your portrait taken and rendered in the plastic bricks as pixel art. Having seen that on our travels w…

A LEGO Orrery

We aren’t sure how accurate you can get with LEGO, but a building block orrery looks cool, if nothing else. [Marian42] saw one done a few years ago and decided to build a version with a diffe…

A Super-Size Functional Tribute To An Ultrasonic Sensor

Sometimes, it’s time to shut down the oscilloscope, and break out the cardboard and paints. If you’re wondering what for, well, here’s a reminder of an Instructable from [CrazySci…

Etch-A-Sketch Camera Is Open Source

The Etch-a-Sketch was a great toy if you were somehow born with the talent to use it. For the rest of us, it was a frustrating red brick filled with weird grey sand. [Every Flavor of Robot] has tak…

3D-Printed Macro Pad Plate Is LEGO-Compatible

We love LEGO, we love keyboards, and when the two join forces, we’re usually looking at a versatile peripheral that’s practically indestructible. Such seems to be the case with [joshmar…

Bonkers Nerf Blaster Sprays Balls Everywhere

Nerf blasters are fun toys, to be sure. However, they’re limited by factors like price and safety and what Hasbro thinks parents will put up with. Few caregivers would ever countenance a buil…

LEGO Keyboard Stand Fits Just Right

Split keyboards are great for many reasons, but mostly because you can place the halves as far apart as you want and really give your arms and shoulders the room they need. [Jason Cox] hit the nail…

Build Yourself A Little Mangonel, You Deserve One

If you’re of a certain age, you almost certainly learned about mangonels by playing Age of Empires II. Any intermediate player will tell you they are a powerful siege weapon that nevertheless…

Recreating The Pop Ball

Those who were kids in the 80s may remember a sweet little toy called the Pop Ball. A simple rubber hemisphere, this rubber cup could be turned inside out and thrown on the ground, where it would h…

LEGO Coin Sorter Is So Money

When it comes to LEGO and sorting, the idea is usually to sort bricks by color, which is a great way to help keep your sanity. And if you want to buy more, you may need to save your pennies and so …

Popup Playground Roams Around

Going to the park is a time-honored pastime for kids around the world, but what if there isn’t one nearby? COMPA Teatro Trono and the International Design Clinic have designed a park that can…