We've culled together all sorts of great gifts for the tech-lovers in your life, but this is Lifehacker, and we've got a strong dose of the DIY ethos pumping through our veins. So to finish off our gift guides for 2011, here are ten of the best DIY kits from Make's Ultimate Gift Guide—perfect for the do-it-yourself lover in your life.
This is one of the most satisfying kits I've ever built, and the Sumovore it creates will be eligible for official RoboGames Mini-Sumo competitions, in which robots vie to push each other out of the ring. This is not a project for beginners, but thanks to clear documentation and well-organized components, anyone with moderate soldering skills and sufficient patience shouldn't have much trouble. It ships with analog "discrete brain" circuitry, but "brainboard" kits let you add popular microcontrollers.
The littleBits kit is like Lego for basic circuits. Each "bit" is a small circuit board that enables a single electronics component or electronic function, like a potentiometer, light sensor, LED, or motor. The bits snap together magnetically with edge connectors that are color-coded to indicate their general role within a circuit; for example magenta means input, green means output, and blue means power. The magnets are oriented so that you cannot connect the bits the wrong way, and three spring-loaded contacts in each connector carry voltage, signal, and ground from bit to bit. This clever design makes experimenting with series circuits easy and "wireless."
The world of Arduino microcontrollers can be a challenge to break into — but not if you're equipped with this kit, which includes all of the hardware you need to work through each of the experiments in Getting Started with Arduino, the popular introductory book by Arduino project co-founder Massimo Banzi. To make it even easier, all of the components are solder-free, except for the DC plug and battery pack — just plug, play, and learn. Not only does the book go over all of the Arduino's features, it also gives a good overview of basic electronics. After completing this kit, I found myself ready to take on all sorts of physical computing projects.
This unique, rugged R/C trainer is assembled by bending carbon fiber rods, binding with Kevlar thread, and then covering with polyester fabric. The build takes an evening or two; add a radio, servos, and batteries, and enjoy a remarkably good airplane for beginners and experienced pilots. Plus, it folds flat, so you can take it anywhere!
This fully functional alarm clock lets you practice defusing simulated explosives. When the red button is pressed, the clock starts a scary countdown like bombs in Hollywood movies. There are four wires across the top of the clock, and you have ten seconds to choose the correct wire to cut. Programmed with the Arduino IDE, so hack away! Fake explosives not included.
I've built my share of catapults (see MAKE Volume 28, "Gravity Catapult"), and this floating-arm kit has thoroughly impressed me. The parts come pre-cut in solid ash, and you clip off tabs to remove them, just like the plastic models I built as a kid. A file will help clean up the tabs. It's put together with wood glue, so use one with good tack or you'll do a lot of waiting. The instructions call for two clamps, but you'd be much better off with eight or more. Spring clamps provide suitable force and won't mark up your wood parts. After all your satisfying work, you end up with an impressive 34-inch trebuchet, capable of hurling a small, dense projectile a respectable 200 feet!
Spike Your Juice is a simple introduction to home fermentation. The kit comes with enough yeast packets for six batches, an airlock with rubber stopper, and clear instructions. To brew a batch of alcoholic juice, add one yeast pack to a 64oz bottle of juice (such as grape or cranberry), shake, stopper with the water-filled airlock valve, and wait 48 hours. The yeast will digest the sugar, producing alcohol and carbonation. Tasty, fizzy, and tipsy fun!
Bacon is enjoying the limelight these days, showing up in everything from chocolate to donuts! If you really want to hop on this fat fad, brine your own. It takes a week, but is incredibly simple and delicious. This kit's recipe book covers bacon, Canadian bacon, and pancetta. Note to the truly dedicated: invest in a smoker. My oven-roasted bacon was tasty, but I gave half of my pork belly to a neighbor, and his hickory-smoked slices really sizzled.
Analog voltage-controlled oscillators (AVOs) make a variety of intriguing hums, beeps, buzzes, and loops, controlled by buttons, knobs, and sensors. These are fantastic group projects because once the soldering irons are all put down, you get an excellent payoff: you can have an impromptu concert. Bleep Labs, run by Austin, Texas, circuit bender and kit maker John-Michael Reed, produces a few AVO kits that I've built and had fun with. The Thingamagoop 2 features a square wave amplitude modulator and triangle wave pulse width modulator, packed into a lovely silkscreened metal enclosure. The Thingamagoop's signature component is an LED on a bendable wire antenna called the LEDacle, which looks cool and, more importantly, interfaces with the light sensor hidden in the eye, making for a huge range of possible sounds. I found the build to be rather challenging. It took me a couple of hours to make, with one or two tricky steps. One thing I appreciated was that unlike other Bleep Labs kits, you don't need anything but the kit itself to make cool music — there's no need to plug into anything. When I finally finished my Thingamagoop, I turned it on and watched as my kids snatched it out of my hands and ran off with it. While the Thingamagoop is obviously kid-friendly, it offers some cool features for mom and dad to explore further. For instance, I'm intrigued that you can reprogram its ATmega328 chip using an Arduino.
I was looking for something to do with the kids. They raved about how much fun the rocket launching was at Maker Faire, so I brought some of that fun home with this kit, which is based on Rick Schertle's project from MAKE Volume 15. The kit is an easy build, one or two hours total, and the rockets go amazingly high — so high I could barely see them anymore. I guess that's high enough! The kit includes Rick's article, all the electronics, and the PVC parts cut to length. All you need to supply are a few common tools, glue, paper, tape, and an air compressor or bicycle pump.
Make's Ultimate Gift Guide | Make
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