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.