We're moving to a smaller apartment soon so I'm building a platform for our bed (king size) this weekend, so we can get more storage under it. Should be fun!
Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
21–30 of 78 posts
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#22I am currently building a peer to peer network of time capsules: http://www.paperinternet.org
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#23A windmill, a house, a car, a 3D mill / plasmacutter.
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#24A monorail. 500 Feet long, held two passengers, guts were a rewired electric wheelchair. http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/5008514139/in/set-...
Very cool!
This picture is neat: http://www.flickr.com/photos/espressobuzz/5008514139/in/set-...
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#25A windmill, a house, a car, a 3D mill / plasmacutter.
Any photos of the windmill? That sounds pretty cool.
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#26My friend Ben and I built a piece of art that responds to fluctuations in magnetic fields in the room to move around ferrofluid.
http://jakemauer.com/work/fields/
I also built a T-Shirt with EL wire that sync'd to Ableton Live
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#27My dad owns a fab shop, so I grew up making stuff.
I was into cars for a long time. In college, I built strut/tie bars and sold them on the web. I turboed my car and built the downpipe and the charge piping. I also made and modified numerous parts for the car and friends' cars (suspension parts, wiring, brackets, blah blah). I also reverse engineered the ECU running the engine and wrote an engine management system for it which required some hardware integration (that count? http://benogle.com/projects/bre ).
All of my furniture that was not upholstered (no couch, etc) until last year was built by me in high school.
I finished the basement in my house which required making a bunch of stuff at previously mentioned fab shop. Even for general house maintenance I often ended up making some small part(s) at the shop (i.e. sprinkler system install, fixing the garage lean, etc).
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#28Semi-recent projects: Bookshelf, desk, plug station, coat hanger antenna, hollowed out book.
My grandfather was a carpenter and when he passed, he gave our family his tools. We always have lots of wood and woodworking tools around so that's my preferred medium (when all you have is a hammer....).
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#29A working CO2 laser, with enough power to char wood and cut paper and thin plastic.
Re: Ask HN: What have you built? (not software related)
#30About a year ago, I spent a weekend building a letterpress. It's turned into a fun hobby.
Printmaking is much more difficult than I'd have expected. One of the biggest challenges is maintaining a clean, inkless field. It's so easy to get ink on your hands, at which point it's nearly impossible to pick up a sheet of paper without smudging it before you're within three feet of the press itself. Registration (proper alignment) is a challenge as well, but is manageable. Working slowly and deliberately is difficult but certainly rewarding (though the reward here is spending an hour with lacquer thinner cleaning off the type, but I digress).
Even so, it feels great to take a Saturday evening away from the Internet, sit down with a set of lead 72pt Franklin Gothic, a brayer and ink, and print a few runs of something that strikes you as amusing at the moment.
Here are a couple photos from the last experiment:
Printed: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cscotta/5018870586/lightbox/
Letterpress: http://www.flickr.com/photos/cscotta/3825133446/
(See the "luck" tag for a couple in-process shots)