Friday, October 27, 2006
MAKE News No. 47: Get Your Scare On!
October 27, 2006
In this issue: It's a DIY Halloween, so get your hacks on!
Hey makers, welcome to the new and improved MAKE newsletter! This is the first time we've sent out the newsletters like this (in HTML with images), so if there are any issues (or heck, compliments) let us know.
--Phillip Torrone, Senior Editor, MAKE
pt@makezine.com
Halloween is fast approaching and MAKE quickly became the place for all things do-it-yourself for Halloween. We have a few contests going on, and anyone can enter, so scare in, scare on, and scare us!
Enter the MAKE & CRAFT Contests!
Makers and Crafters, it's time to enter our ghoulishly fun Halloween contests! Anyone, anywhere can enter, and depending on what type of maker or crafter you are, you can enter all or just some of the contests. Hack-o-lantern, costumes, Halloween gadgets, haunted houses, and our special "Trick-or-Treat" contests are all happening, right now!
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/2006/10/make_craft_halloween_contests.html
Halloween projects @ MAKE
From homemade robot costumes, to high-tech haunted houses and electronic Cylon robot pumpkins, the MAKE Halloween projects section has hundreds of do-it-yourself projects and plans for everything Halloween.
http://www.makezine.com/blog/archive/halloween/
The Maker's Edition Pocket Ref: No Maker's Tool Kit Should Be Without One!
This great little book is a concise all-purpose reference featuring hundreds of tables, maps, formulas, constants & conversions and it still fits in your shirt pocket! Packed with mathematical formula, tables, standard conversion ratio, electric wire size vs. load, resistor color codes, Morse code, sun & planet data, earthquake scales, nail sizes, geometry formulas, currency exchange rates, and much more! It's no wonder The Pocket Ref was featured in MythBusters.
And now, with each two-year subscription to Make magazine, you'll receive your own Make Special Edition Pocket Ref as our gift to you. And if you already subscribe, we'll extend the same offer on any two-year renewal.
From the MAKE Blog
MAKE: PUMPKIN
Listen, I'm not saying Ben is 100% going to win one of the MAKE & CRAFT contests, I'm just saying that putting the MAKE: logo on a pumpkin increases your odds ... a lot. - Link. Related:
- Hack-o-Lantern contest: Decorate a pumpkin in any way you see fit, or unfit. It's that easy. Then upload your photos to the MAKE or CRAFT Flickr photo pool and tag them "MAKECRAFTHALLOWEEN". Or you can email them to us -- just be aware that we're going to upload them to the MAKE and CRAFT Flickr photo pools. We'll also have a round up of ways to decorate a pumpkin as it gets closer to Halloween Link.
- Get the MAKE logos here and the CRAFT logos here.
Un-Halloween Pumpkin Patterns
Tired of cats, ghosts, and grinning reapers? Pumpkin Glow has a ton of free downloadable "UN-Halloween Pumpkin Patterns" in PDF format. Pictured here, my favorites (from the I Love Americaseries) - Link. Related: Enter the MAKE & CRAFT Contests!
- Makers and Crafters, it's time to enter our ghoulishly fun Halloween contests! Anyone, anywhere can enter, and depending on what type of maker or crafter you are, you can enter all or just some of the contests - Link.
HOW TO - Make a Mr. T Costume
MAKE Flickr photo pool member Fefillo (and MAKE & CRAFT Halloween contest entrant) shows you how to make your own Mr. T costume - Link. Related: I pity the fool who don't enter the MAKE & CRAFT Contests!
- Makers and Crafters, it's time to enter our ghoulishly fun Halloween contests! Anyone, anywhere can enter, and depending on what type of maker or crafter you are, you can enter all or just some of the contests - Link.
Homemade Legend of Zelda Link Costume
Awesome! Here is MAKE Flickr photo pool member Orion_thunter's entry in the MAKE & CRAFT Halloween contest - Link. Related: Enter the MAKE & CRAFT Contests! - Makers and Crafters, it's time to enter our ghoulishly fun Halloween contests! Anyone, anywhere can enter, and depending on what type of maker or crafter you are, you can enter all or just some of the contests - Link.
HOW TO - Make A Cylon Jack-O-Lantern
Windell writes in with this incredible Battlestar Galactica Cyclon (robot kind, not meat kind): "For Halloween this year, we made Cylon Jack-o-lanterns in both large and small versions. The design consists of two parts, a pumpkin-carving part and an electronics part. The big idea, of course, is to make the Cylon's red eye scan back and forth. " [via] - Link. This was entered in the MAKE & CRAFT Halloween contest too! Related: Enter the MAKE & CRAFT Contests!
- Makers and Crafters, it's time to enter our ghoulishly fun Halloween contests! Anyone, anywhere can enter, and depending on what type of maker or crafter you are, you can enter all or just some of the contests - Link.
Weekend Projects Podcast: Make A Programmable LED Pumpkin
It struck me like a bolt of lightning when I was reading the new CRAFT magazine: I could make a programmable LED pumpkin!
Watch the video to learn how to do it and get inspired to get some LEDs blinking in your pumpkin! I still have a lot to learn about how to program it, but it works. Now I'm going to have to make some sort of pumpkin protection device to keep it from getting smashed!
Make sure to go check out the instructional post and download the PDF to read the original article and learn about the changes I made to the project to make it work in a pumpkin.
I record the podcast in HD and output a lot of formats so that you can have your weekend projects on whatever platform you like.
Here's a QuickTime mov for your iPod.
Here's an MP4 for your PSP.
Here's a giant HD size QuickTime mov for those with quick download speeds.
Here's a 3gp and 3g2 for people who like to watch on their phone!
Of course, if you subscribe in iTunes, the videos get downloaded automatically for you -- no muss, no fuss.
And you can browse all the videos on blip.tv and YouTube at your leisure!
