My friend Lori turned me on to O’Reilly’s new “Make” magazine this weekend.  Very cool stuff.  I love the current trend towards mainstreaming the hacking of stuff.  You can find similar, although a bit more technical, stuff on the Hack a Day blog. 

I’m dying to try Make’s project for “kite arial photography”.  Basically you build a cradle out of popsicle sticks and pure grit, put a disposable camera in it, and hang it from a kite string.  At some controllable interval after you get it in the air, it releases the shutter on the camera and you get some pretty cool aerial photos. 

There’s also a project for a $15 DIY steady-cam.  Pretty fun stuff, and most of it looks pretty easy to build. 

My son is chomping at the bit to try their electric motor made from a magnet, some wire, two safety pins and a D battery.  Good times.