Building my own mechanical keyboards and learning to paint with gouache (not that super amazing end result, but is for me super cool to have a physical painting at the end of a session).
Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
141–150 of 694 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#142Wooden puzzle boxes.
Oooh, do share some details. I've been meaning to try making them after stumbling upon https://www.pelikanpuzzles.eu
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#143Earlier quoted context omitted.
Almost old enough to send into the mines and start paying rent!
This joke is funny because no one currently living has to make this choice.
Oh they do, but now it's in the name of electrification .
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2021/jan/03/child-la...
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#144A 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’s really cool! Did you publish your code anywhere?
I found this in the Imgur comments: https://gist.github.com/kaspermeerts/781f0137b361b51224dcab7...
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#145Search for "in case of revolution break glass" and you'll see a bunch of photos of copies, some even for sale, of a physical meme that a friend and I built over a decade ago. You'll also see the original mixed in there somewhere :-) It's still in my apartment.
(Credit goes mostly to my friend for the construction, though it was my idea and I placed the lettering by hand.)
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#146A 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…
Impressive creation, creepy gift.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#147I built a pikler triangle out of solid oak with all brass hardware. Painted it with my wife using milk paints.
Came out very nice, learned a lot of woodworking skills.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#148I bought a house that was sold as "uninhabitable" in Amsterdam, pulled out all the interior walls, applied insulation, then taught my self plumbing and did the plumbing, redid the wiring, installed the gas heater, laid radiant heating. I built new interior walls and did all the interior finishing except for plastering downstairs and pouring cement over the radiant heating, which I had professionals do. Coolest single…
If I was an absolute beginner (which I am) I would be definitely very wary to do by myself the electrical wiring or the gas connections... while half-assing the rest can only look bad, those can kill you and your loved ones (neighbors need not apply).
as homeowner to several places certified to have been habitable and built by professionals, let me tell you, that shark fin headed toward you is plumbing.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#149One of my favorites is an RC boat made out of metal. It turns out that you can get 0.3mm thick, tin plated steel, cut it with scissors, bend it, and solder it together with a normal soldering iron.
Another other one would be a split keyboard, for which I designed and built everything (case, pcb, plate, software) from scratch.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#150I made one of those Word Clocks using an arduino, glass, wood, paint, a couple buttons, and a laser cutter. I painted a pane of glass white, then black, and created the file for all the letter to say the time as well as happy birthday. Took it to a laser cutter to etch it into the glass. Made a backing with leds programmed to display correctly the date and time, iterate through colors, modes, etc. I also made it in H…
So cool! Got any photos of your build?
I did something similar...
I made a musical automatic Hanukkah Menorah using an Arduino (Seeeduino XIAO SAMD21), MDF, birch veneer, melamine edge banding, a GPS module, tiny speaker, LED strip, and a CNC machine.
Check it out: http://HanuKron.com
My other clocks: https://DigitalHorology.com