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Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

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Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#501

Post by javajosh »

swighton wrote: post #361

I made a baseball bat that uses explosives to add a bunch of energy to your swing and hit a baseball really far. It uses the explosive blanks normally used to shoot nails into concrete (e.g. ramset). It worked way better than I expected, didn't have a kick, and turned out to be just a really neat thing to look at while sipping a frosty beverage. I also made a video about it if you're interested: https://youtu.be/Puo6…

I'm honestly a little jealous that you've managed to carve out a niche where you get to imagine and built insane/cool stuff. A dream come true! Congrats and great channel.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#502

Post by 0xbadcafebee »

A 20x20 transforming tubular steel sculpture for Burning Man. Learned how to calculate structural limits of steel structures, how to weld, swedge, cope, bend. Made 350 3-way joints out of just tube. Assembled over 3 days in different configurations and finally served as a human cat-shelf and platform for spray-painted art on sheets. Fucker was heavy... next time I'm using aluminum.

Next up this fall: a kinetic wooden sculpture that destroys itself with fire

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#503

Post by LgWoodenBadger »

pseudosavant wrote: post #216
leipert wrote: post #198

Earlier quoted context omitted.

What do you think about the longevity of these Sonos products? I got sucked into the ecosystem via IKEA/Sonos collab and now added one to my TV setup. The ecosystem is nice _currently_ but do you think the hardware+software will be useable in 5,10,15 years from now? Do you think it could be liberated software wise. Thinking about this because I am contemplating moving my vinyl setup to Sonos as well.

I have ten year old Sonos gear that still works. The feature I wish the speakers had most? A line in jack so I could use them with something other than apps. That is a kind of future proofing all powered speakers should have.

I believe both the old and the new Sonos Amp have line-in inputs which can then be shared as the source with other Sonos units.

I think there was a dedicated Sonos line-in unit that was cheaper than the Amp, but I can’t recall its name.

https://support.sonos.com/en-us/article/use-line-in-on-sonos

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#505

Post by avar »

tinco wrote: post #457
avar wrote: post #430

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> So the core standard is called NEN1010 [...] If you still have it & don't mind sharing my email's in my profile... :-) > I meant it's hard to do it wrong if you're trying to do it right[...] This example came to mind because a friend of mine (we're also both in Amsterdam) got this specific thing wrong, then asked me and a couple of others about melted connectors. I agree it's generally quite easy, and yeah the "ins…

> reversing which side of the socket live and neutral are on. What do you mean? Like mid way through an install? As far as I'm aware there's no rules about which side the phase should be on, and googling only shows some electricians prefer to have phase on the left side because it's easy to remember and consistency helps with debugging.

As far as I know a Schuko socket can have live on either the left or right (looking at it), but there's a strong convention for having it on the right.

Partly this is compatibility between CEE 7/3 and 7/5 and 7/7[1], The Netherlands almost universally using the first.

I have a socket tester designed for Schuko (similar to, but not exactly [2]), it (and AFAICT this is universal among them) enforces "live on the right".

What is definitely standardized us that the wires in your wall should be brown=live and blue=neutral (in the UK and European continent, other places may differ).

Once you start mixing up neutral and live in sockets it'll often lead to a mixup in the wall wiring, as sockets are often used as a starting point to extend wiring. I partially rewired my house to fix that issue, left by an electrician.

As an extra data point, e.g. Jung sells pre-wired sockets which assume that you follow this convention[3]. If you don't you'll end up with reversed wires in your wall, i. e. wires mixed up by color, not just the socket itself violating some convention of live=right.

The photo in [3] is low resolution, so you can't see the tiny "Jung" logo on the inner part of the socket, which indicates which side is up.

1. https://commons.m.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:European_plug_and_...

2. https://amzn.eu/d/1HuzNPJ

3. https://www.elektramat.nl/jung-dubbel-stopcontact-met-randaa...

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#506

Post by Bjorkbat »

This is a bit of a strange one, but I made a free-to-play game that produces “art” posters as a form of monetization. Still a work in progress, but I was able to finally produce a poster from the game, which felt gratifying.

Might post it on Show HN one of these days. Still needs some work though.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#507

Post by endgame »

swighton wrote: post #361

I made a baseball bat that uses explosives to add a bunch of energy to your swing and hit a baseball really far. It uses the explosive blanks normally used to shoot nails into concrete (e.g. ramset). It worked way better than I expected, didn't have a kick, and turned out to be just a really neat thing to look at while sipping a frosty beverage. I also made a video about it if you're interested: https://youtu.be/Puo6…

I shouldn't be surprised that you post here. Your channel is amazing and inspiring, and I love that you dive into your failures and dead-ends, and hide little background gags on the monitors. And the pranks and roasts between you and your wife are so much fun to watch - you're a lucky man.

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#508

Post by skykooler »

I’ve been building a mobile workshop which lets me bring all my tools anywhere in the country. Including welders, two metal lathes, 3D printers, woodworking tools, an electronics workbench, an anvil and forge, and a foundry setup to melt and cast aluminum and bronze. The whole shop runs entirely on electricity and I have deployable arrays of solar panels to power the whole thing and charge my electric car. I’m even adding a small living area at the front. I’ve been documenting my progress at https://youtube.com/playlist?list=PL8n8vml-zgaCbXwYD_Q2jZzok...

Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?

#509

Post by nkg »

A lot of furnitures for our home. Like a lot of software engineers, I have a thing for woodworking. I started with a footstool, then I made a simple cabinet, a mirror frame, cabinet with drawers, 3 wardrobes, a kitchen island, another footstool, shelves, a workbench, a desk, and some experimental stuff.
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