DIYs & Mods

Last year, John Savio, Apple fanboy and avid Halloween fan, created an iPhone 3GS costume that impressed the geek community. It was both a thing of beauty and yet somehow aesthetically ‘off.’ He incorporated a display that made the costume look like a functioning device, but the form factor was all wrong. The corners were too squared… the width too ...

Ray Tanaka and his team over at PayPal Labs constructed this PayPal Vending Machine, unveiling it at PayPal X Innovate 2010. The machine melds together a zeitgeist of gadgets to allow smartphones to scan a QR code and make a PayPal payment. Once a payment is made, the machine tweets your purchase and notifies you with a confirmation display. Tanaka ...

It’s a curious thing, physics. It’s everywhere around us, yet without an education of its every function and reaction, most of us don’t see it, or at least acknowledge it. We know it’s there, but we’re immune to its actual nature. For instance, something as simple as peeling a piece of Scotch tape off of the roll. Most people would ...

Ben Heck, expert modder and webshow host, is at it again with his newest creation, the Real-Life Portal T-Shirt. By modifying the shirt with “a chest-mounted LCD screen and a back-mounted CCD camera,” Heck created a t-shirt which puts a hole through your belly, right where the cake would have been if it weren’t a lie. Ben shows off his ...

An Australian carpenter-cabinetmaker took his talents to the automotive world with his custom DIY Ferrari V12 engine which is completely made out of carved wood. Weighing around 55 lbs, the wooden V12 is an exact replica of the actual Ferrari engine, down to every last wooden spark plug. Of course, the engine is not functional, so don’t try to strap ...

This week in cheap Stormtrooper costume ideas, we examine Jason’s Stormtrooper trash bin helmet, an idea he was forced to employ after a student of� his promised to lend him a costume for a school event, yet failed to deliver. In a blind panic, Jason grabbed the closest object within arm’s reach and improvised. Here is what you’ll need according ...

Russian computer modders are really on a roll recently. The newest PC mod from the Russian mind is this amazing Cyberpunk PC, which looks more like the device used to jack in to the Matrix than just some piece of hardware you use to surf the web. Completely devoid of a case, the Cyberpunk PC opts to expose all of ...

Simple, yet effective. With a few artistic talents and some old junk you likely have laying around the house anyway, you can create your own Nintendo Mii costume. This guy used some spare cardboard to fashion a tennis racket and little red rubber buffers as peg hands. The solid red t-shirt seals the deal. I imagine the mask is simple ...

A Russian modder has crafted the perfect solution to limited storage space for all of those torrents you’ve been downloading recently. This homemade computer rig rocks out with 90 terabytes of storage. But 90 TB of computing generates a ton of heat, which is why this computer needs 40 fans to keep cool. More than enough space to download pretty ...

Using only natural materials found on the ground of New Jersey’s woods, and with no modern tools, Jamie O�Shea created a functioning telegraph. O’Shea had set out to prove that modern day electronic communication methods could have been discovered by early man. His conclusion? They could have, but they didn’t. With the Immaculate Telegraphy project, O’Shea used natural materials to ...