Cliche response but has to be said, a daughter.
[flagged]
Seed investment round I suppose
Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
41–50 of 694 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#42Does a garden count? In a small, urban plot I grow grapes, tomatoes, strawberries, mint, elderberries, and carrots.
A work in progress but I'm building a modular synthesizer. I've built the power supply and have the VCO started on a strip board. Planning on adding some bits to that, making a step sequencer, and some filters.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#43RFID Blocking Wallets!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ka4eg9Kl6hI&t=104s
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#44Animated laptop stickers. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/06/building-a-minimum-viable-l... First time I've ever built and sold something physical. Amazed at how many people liked them.
Nice. I did a lenticular thing too. A couple years ago. A 4x6 inch 6 frame art thing. The printer was in Los Angeles and shortly thereafter he stopped doing business. Funny how hard it is to find a printer of such.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#45The silliest thing I built was a hot-tub water heater system for one of those inflatable Intex hot tubs. Running the heat off 1500W was stupidly inefficient, so I went out and acquired one of those tankless propane-powered hot water heaters and rigged it to a commercial RV water pump and a 20# propane tank to circulate water into the hot tub that way. It heated the tub up from ~50* faucet to 104* hot in about 3 hours, instead of closer to 30 on 120V power.
The other thing I built is more of a lifehack living with sleep apnea. My CPAP's humidifier failed, and instead of replacing it with another proprietary humidifier, I bought an external CPAP humidifier[1] and then realized I could, with some clever plumbing, rig up a water pump from an external gallon jug of water to automatically re-fill my humidifier in the morning at the push (and hold) of a button. I took an oxygen-insertion tee, 12v pump, and some tubing and a check valve and attached the pump to the oxygen line on one of the inlets of the humidifier chamber. When you push the button, water flows through, through the check valve, and immediately down into the chamber.
Here's a snapshot of an early test: https://i.imgur.com/vund22E.png
It's been tweaked a little bit since then but it's my FAVORITE thing on my nightstand now. (And yes - that is a recalled DreamStation 1 - I personally opened it and repaired the defect foam myself. I don't trust the replacement device they sent me any farther than harvesting the motor from it when my old machine fails.)
[1] https://www.fphcare.com/us/homecare/sleep-apnea/cpap-devices...
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#46Guitar straps made with handwoven Peruvian textiles: https://originalfuzz.com/collections/peruvian-guitar-straps
Speaking of guitars, I am currently restoring a Korean superstrat I have since I am a teenager that seriously needed love. I am learning a ton of things like fret work, electronics and light wood work.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#47All before 1982:
a belt-driven windmill to an auto alternator, complete with a household DC circuit providing switchable lights. (thanks Popular Mechanic magazine!)
a 6' multi-stage magnetic-driven projectile launcher complete with a horkage of old TV capacitors.
An amplified passive Ultrasonic sniffer with earphone.
An alarm trip sensor comprised of mirrored lightbeams.
And created/deployed "THE" original credit card reader for a set of gas pumps, later sold to Gasboy, Inc.
Then got wisked away for many other things for a long time.
Now, I am back to experimenting on a portable unidirectional EMP phase.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#48Cleared trees (only those necessary), installed water service, excavated and built a 4000 sq ft irregularly-shaped driveway using DOT methods. Everything modelled and planned down to the inch in 3D using SketchUp. (Buildings to come)
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#49With others? I'd say the CMU Terregator in 1983
Solo? Probably the stone wall in my backyard.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#50Animated laptop stickers. https://shkspr.mobi/blog/2020/06/building-a-minimum-viable-l... First time I've ever built and sold something physical. Amazed at how many people liked them.
That is awesome! I want to do this now.