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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?

#131

Post by cjm42 »

I made a silverware holder custom-fit to my silverware.

I found a half-inch thick HDPE cutting board at a restaurant supply store, cut it to fit my drawer, then drilled holes in it and inserted short wooden dowels to hold the stacks of silverware in place. To position the dowels, I wrapped a nail in tape to match the diameter of the dowels, then placed my silverware on the board, slid the nail up next to it, and gave it a tap to mark the board where the holes needed to be drilled.

It worked really well and was quite easy to do. I highly recommend it.

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

#132

Post by jumploops »

I once built a “solar chime” using broken solar panel pieces, a microcontroller, battery, wind chime, motor and two magnets.

The idea was simple: when the sun comes up, chime.

It would charge up the battery during the day, lose current over night, and when current came back in the morning it would spin up a magnet using the motor (hidden under a platform) which would then cause the chime to activate (after attaching a magnet to the central chime string).

The whole thing resembled a flower in a pot, with a wind chime hanging off it.

After I finished, a guy came up to ask what it was. He and I were both a bit delirious as it was 6 or 7am after a long night of hacking. I demoed the solar chime and he exclaimed: “wow, it’s like analog to digital to analog!”

I now thing about most things that way.

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

#133

Post by aio2 »

hoofhearted wrote: post #115

I helped build “The Cloud” without really knowing it lol.. I joined a 5 year electrical apprenticeship after highschool. I spent many days between 2006 and 2012 building out crazy electrical systems in these giant warehouse looking buildings in Northern Virginia, for DuPont Fabros and Digital Reality. I had no idea exactly what the purpose of these server farms were for, but they just told us “if we build it they wil…

Goddamn that's pretty crazy

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

#134

Post by sulZ »

kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

Do you have the source code for the scripts you wrote to help? I'd be interested in seeing them

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

#136

Post by eye-robot »

Built "Free Enterprise" (AKA 'Big Bird") with Dave Elliot. My boss was Tom Jewett. That plane along with the golden Q2 shown at Oshkosh 1981.

I'd be super impressed if anyone knew my name ;-) (Fred Jiran would know me) (plus, I was hired by Boeing in 1985 and worked in MR&D Composite Primary Structures)

P.S. G. Michael Huffman is a BFL (big fat liar). He came on after Dave and I completed the aircraft, INCLUDING the landing dolly. Actually, I give 95% credit to Dave there, he did most of the final work, since he was a registered A&P.

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

#137

Post by chews »

I was a co-builder of “the funhouse”.

Have a look - https://funhouse.house

My ex and I built a large physical love note to each other by way of turning what started as her boring studio apartment into an interactive art installation we would live together in and build.

It’s now an exhibit in Manhattan and over 100k people have moved through the whimsy and magic at a huge scale… and yet, it started with a huge crush between a nerd and an artist.

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

#138

Post by nojs »

kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

That is insanely cool, I would love to see the script to convert png to string placement.

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

#140

Post by JackFr »

kmm wrote: post #77

A few years ago I made a "string art" portrait for my girlfriend at the time. It's made from a continuous† 2 km long black thread, woven around a loom made from a bicycle wheel rim. I'm still very proud of how it turned out. †OK fine, it broke at a few points and I had to knot the ends together, but it's the principle that counts. https://imgur.com/gallery/ljoJeal I really wanted to make something creative for her, b…

Best no-word, visual, intuitive explanation of how CAT scans work ever!
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