geekosystem

We're lucky to live in a world that also contains the folks over at Hack A Day, for whom "Gee, that sounds dangerous" is not a sentence to give pause, but a rallying cry to see how far one can push a strange, and quite possibly bad, idea. And that, folks, is how an 80,000-volt Tesla coil got inside a homemade replica of Thor's hammer.

Don't you hate it when you're building the arc reactor for your Iron Man costume, but the Arduino powered circuit board you're using is just too big? Well friend, it sounds like you could use the Adafruit Gemma! It packs most of the wearable computing power you love about Adafruit's larger Flora model into to a one-inch disc. Perfect for all your arc reactor needs. Sure, the Adafruit Gemma could probably be used for a lot of different projects, but if I had one, I'd totally use it to build an arc reactor.

Any Doctor Who fan can tell you that the TARDIS is "bigger on the inside," but reproducing the dimensionally transcendental interior of the Doctor's little blue box in a model or toy is a bit impossible at the moment -- except with augmented reality. Greg Kumparak used augmented reality to create this TARDIS model that appears bigger on the inside, at least when you look at it through Kumparak's smartphone.

If there's one thing about warfare, it's that it offers absolutely no luxuries. Sometimes, when one's life is on the line, you have to buck up and make do with what you have when it comes to your survival. The Syrian rebels are no stranger to this concept and have relied on their ingenuity and basic programming skills to cobble together their own DIY tank. Built upon an old car chassis, the tank, dubbed the "Sham II" in honor of ancient Syria, boasts a camera system, internal LCD display and -- perhaps the most important feature -- a pivoting gun turret controlled by a video game controller. It may not get any points in the looks department, but let's face it -- if you have to make a decision between "crappy tank" and "no tank," you're going with "crappy tank" like, every time. Video after the jump.

Just in time for the holidays, we've found an electric candle that is powered by a regular candle. Why would anyone want to power an electric candle with a regular candle? Why not just light the candle, or turn on the electric candle? Why make one rely on the other? Because it's awesome. That's why. The best part is that it's complete with instructions on how to make one yourself. We'll try not to burn down the office.

What do you get when you cross the remains of a dismembered guitar with an Arduino powered robotic glockenspiel? In the interest of full disclosure, we've never had occasion to ask ourselves that question. We have an answer to it today, though, and the answer is glockentar, a musical chimera of bells, circuits, strings and light projections that...you know what? Just check out the video. It's one of those "you have to see it for yourself" things.

There's good news for those of you who just can't get enough of airport security this holiday season -- now, you can build your own backscatter X-ray machine, just like the one that ensures you're not bringing anything unsafe like nail clippers or a lighter onto the airplane. It's a little more cumbersome than a pair of X-ray specs, but as the video demonstrates, it's a pretty effective tool for seeing through things. Considering it was built entirely with parts purchased off of eBay, it's a pretty serious feat of DIY engineering, and we doff our caps to inventor Ben Krasnow, who will no doubt be scanning friends and family as they come through the door for his holiday party. Anything to avoid the Christmas pat down, right?

Have you ever wanted your own army of nightmarish strawberry monsters, ready and willing to carry out your terrible whims and crush any who would dare oppose you? Of course you have! You're only human, after all! If there's one thing that science fiction novels and comic books have taught us over the years, though, it's that the first step to anyone's dream of a horrible mutant army is the extraction of DNA from the innocent organisms you want to breed into horrible mutants. Now, the Internet has taken all of the mystery right out of that all important first step, and thanks to the following handy video, you can extract DNA from a strawberry in your kitchen using things you (mostly) already have around the house. Just, when you do conquer the world, please, remember us fondly. We don't ask much. Maybe one of the smaller continents. You know. If you're not using it.

This is a full, working reproduction of a vintage Autochrome Lumière camera, made of nothing but LEGO pieces, cardboard, and duct tape, supposedly. We would be fools to believe there is not also some black magic in the works here, but as we can't prove it, we'll just have to tip our hat to the camera's creator, Dominique Vankan, DIY hero and likely sorcerer.

Having a child is an event that can end up starting a series of compromises. After all, you've got to make room in your life for another human that's quite a bit smaller and relies on others for everything. Ian, from Los Angeles, even had to give up his home office to accommodate the new screaming bundle of joy in his life. This was apparently seen as a challenge, because Ian went on to create an impressive mobile home office out of IKEA bits and pieces.

We spent this Saturday at New York's Maker Faire 2012 gawking at  cool DIY gadgets and gear from labs, garages, and hackerspaces near and far. We'll have a gallery of some of our favorite pictures from the show up soon, but for now, here are our first reactions on this year's Maker Faire.

There are problems with the iPhone 5 that are not involved with the ludicrously bad, phone-breaking revision to the map application. In addition to that completely baffling misstep, there are no docks yet that accommodate the iPhone 5 and its new Lightning connector. Unlike the lack of a map function that is elegantly and simply built into your phone, there is something you can do about this the lack of a dock! Casey Neistat shows you how to build an iPhone 5 dock out of just a couple of scraps of plywood. It is a very easy thing you can do if, like Neistat, you have quite the well-appointed workshop already.

If you don't have Winamp handy, or want to stare at a three dimensional physical object rather than a flat LCD, YouTube user konakid171 has a project for you. The above video showcases a do-it-yourself 9 x 9 x 9 LED cube that lights up in rhythm with music.

I'm not a coward or anything (I swear!), but I will level with you -- being a parent looks utterly daunting and terrifying. One day someone just hands you a tiny little human that is incapable of doing anything but producing noise and goo, and for the next several years, you are responsible for making sure it thrives. Luckily, there's help, and no, I'm not talking about spouses or your own, seasoned parents -- I'm talking about good old never-let-you-down or lead-you-astray technology. Before his daughter was even born, hacker and blogger Gjoci was hard at work cobbling together a breath detector from a Wiimote and a trio of 1 milliwatt lasers. Positioned above the crib, this neat hack sets off an alarm anytime the breathing seems to stop or becomes irregular.

For those of you who can't quite get enough customization out of their gaming peripherals and 17 to 20 buttons on your mouse alone isn't enough for your favorite rednecks-in-space RTS, Mauricio Romano, created this sweet custom StarCraft II arcade pad.