I made a volcano out of plaster of Paris. The cool bit was that for the eruption I used potassium permanganate in the volcano’s cone and poured glycerin on it to ignite the volcano.
Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
581–590 of 694 posts
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#582I made a spice rack out of unit size lumber which was strong enough to survive nuclear war.
I made a bed-desk combo when I was 16 which was similarly robust but that time modulated through my dad's sense of 'less would be more here'
I used Victor Papanek's books to get plywood "H" sections made which formed a modular bookcase I continue to use, which has been through 5 houses across 30 years now. The unit scale included a cassette tape minimum size alongside standard paperback and large format/LP scale.
I made another nuclear bomb proof wooden thing, a cassette storage case which doubled as a suitcase to move the entire collection around and then hang it on the wall. in hindsight, 90 tapes of cajun music and "my mix tape" was less in need of portability than I thought.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#583I 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…
Oh wow, it's you! Your videos are super inspiring. Keep on making!
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#584Several years ago I bought a sailboat that was sitting on a rusted out trailer, and I decided to build a new trailer for it from scratch. Proud moments were when I finished that part that the bow of the boat sits on with the crank thingy and my wife asked where I bought it, and when I went to register it at the state patrol the inspector didn't believe I made it myself. Anyway, the kicker was that since I live in Washington State I had to show all the receipts for the materials to prove they had been taxed, and the total came to....almost exactly the cost of buying a new galvanized trailer off the shelf. Yeah.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#585It was a DIY pre-covid project. It was meant for me to locate my bike in an open-air parking lot meant for two-wheelers. The circuit wasn't perfect. Here are some videos/pics:
Ps: it is a failed project, but enjoyable.
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#586A walking bike with a wheel in the front and 6 Theo Jansen type legs in the back
https://www.thedailybeast.com/judge-aileen-cannon-comes-out-...
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#587A quantum physicist, a neurobiologist, and a manufacturing engineer!
I feel like I got to split and parallelize my life four ways (I still count!) so I can do more of the things I always wanted to do.
I did have a co-maker, wasn’t all me!
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#588My favorite thing that I've built is printer prop for a ballet piece about how horrible working with printers is. I had to gut the printer, which was a lot of fun, then figure out a way for it to make the noises we wanted when the dancers interacted with it. I was super happy with how it turned out, allowing the dancers to interact and run the printer while they were dancing.
Link: https://www.instagram.com/p/CrT5HqKP2ts/?utm_source=ig_web_c...
Bonus: Built a new set of tweeter for my old pair of speakers, and look and sound beautiful! https://www.printables.com/model/518598-bw-cdm-7nt-tweeter-a...
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#589I built a mobile, wood-fired sauna. It's 8.5 feet wide, 12 feet long and 13.5 feet tall. It seats 6. I like to run it 180-210 °F.
Well, it was mobile until the axles ripped off on its maiden voyage. Now it's up on skids until I get the courage to throw another $4,000 at new axles (and wheels, tires and leaf springs since I have to go up to the next class).
Some photos at: https://imgur.com/a/em9gBDj
During the build I blogged a bit about the project at: http://seekingsauna.com
My brothers and my dad helped me disassemble a tiny house in someone's backyard in Cambridge in June 2021 during a heat wave: http://seekingsauna.com/building
There were quite a few gotchas, one being that once I installed the rafters I realized I had to reduce the pitch in order to be able to get under New England highway bridges (14 feet): http://seekingsauna.com/roof-snafu
I've been meaning to write about the accident (the axles completely sheared off one side of the trailer) that happened a bit over a year ago but have been too busy enjoying the sauna and working on some other projects!
Re: Ask HN: What's the coolest physical thing you've made?
#590I made a robot that cheers every time the Green Bay Packers score (American football). https://imgur.com/a/JeiDCYR The chassis is 3D printed and a Raspberry Pi is hiding, with a couple of speakers, in the base. The Pi connects via WiFi to the local network and checks ESPN’s publicly available JSON for that day’s game to determine if the score has changed. I gifted it to a friend that owns a bar and wanted him to be a…
Oh wow I built something just like RaspWiFi ten years ago. Silly of me not to open source it back then!