An almost complete set of helicopter flight controls for XPlane out of wood, aluminum, potentiometers and USB controllers. Works exceptionally well for a virtual Huey.
Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
161–170 of 694 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#162I learned the basics of electrics and rewired my house. While doing that i also learned how to "make" network cables and everything. That in turn has lead to some cool house automation for lights pool and more and now i can make my own homekit adapters too =)
being able to crimp out ethernet cables is so useful
I used to love crimping out cables until I got a punchdown tool, now I punch down jacks and leave the cables to the professionals :D
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#163I once built a custom wooden bookshelf from scratch. It was both a challenging and rewarding experience. I learned about woodworking techniques and design considerations.
It's amazing how crafting something tangible can provide a sense of accomplishment and connection with your space.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#164I like building bikes. I have four now that are all frame up builds, and I've used it to get pretty good at fixing and diagnosing issues too the point friends come to me. I've also learned to build wheels though that's very much a work in progress.
I also roast coffee. I exclusively buy green to roast for myself and friends and haven't bought roasted coffee in over a year!
I learned to sew and made a frame bag or two for my bike, and have made some shorts, pants, working on some skirts.
I keep fresh water planted aquariums and have learned to set those up. they are fun and very pretty.
I struggle with creative projects, so these types of things above - skilled, short projects, I guess - are my bread and butter. I'm learning guitar again but I'm not very musically creative either so we'll see how it goes this time.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#165A synthesizer played by pumping energy into it: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=huYJa2Du57g
Because the volume should track how hard you play and stopping to change/recharge batteries takes away the fun!
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#166I 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
Ah - I wish I took more photos. I only have some in-progress photos around. I'll upload them a little later today.
I love the simple wood look of your pieces! Really elegant looking.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#167Built a two-seat, single engine airplane. Took 6.5 years to build and I've been flying it for close to a year now. The U.S. and several other countries have fairly liberal rules allowing for home-built aircraft, so there are actually tens of thousands of home-built planes flying around today. Yes, it's built from a kit (mostly sheet aluminum and rivets, some fiberglass) but I'm OK with calling it cool.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#168One 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.
I used to make RC planes and quads, it was super fun, and there's a huge community of foam board planes which are pretty fun and easy.
which style keeb did you make? :D
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#169I 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…
Am I understanding this correctly, basically a Colo was acquired by Amazon?
It’s pedantic but colo existed for decades before AWS.
It’s the software layer from AWS that made it “The Cloud” (quicker access to hardware & billing by the second, not month)
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#170My telescope(s). It's a very rewarding hobby, from making the mirror (manual labor + measurements with interferometry), silvering it (a bit of chemistry), designing in CAD and building the actual usable telescope, there are a lot of moving parts to design, and steps that you can either do or delegate. I think anyone who likes manual work can find a piece of a telescope that's enjoyable to work on. The feeling you get…
Get normal public involved in your adventures like this guy. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XCrJ3NflOpE
That's my ultimate goal, an itinerant astronomy car to go in villages where there are no astronomy clubs. I also started teaching the few things I know about mirror making to my club and whoever asks.
I'm building public-compatible stuff now that I have my own stuff that is quite delicate to handle, after a few public nights where children grab onto a high-end eyepiece...
The 16.5" will be a very rugged scope to fulfill this purpose. I think John Dobson's approach to telescopes is the ultimate one, that is, the value of a scope is the number of people who looked through it