make something from Make magazine

I bought a really good soldering iron station a few weekends ago. With a good iron, it was easy to learn to solder. I put together an LED pumpkin for Michele and a lame FM radio for me. Both projects worked just fine and I have a few hundred solder points under my belt now. Since soldering was one of the barriers to entry on a lot of the MAKE projects I wanted to try, maybe now I can actually complete some more projects.

So, I finally made something from MAKE magazine. Consider how most projects are electronic or hardware related, it seems like a silly start but I made ice cream from volume 6. It was released as a sample for kids to make over the summer but it was an actual project from the published magazine so I think it counts. I used vanilla bean and a raw sugar cane extract for sugar so the final flavor was a strong almost molasses taste. It was pretty good but the burst ziplock bag and salt water everywhere were enough to convince me an ice cream churn is money well spent.

I bought a Minty Boost Altoids tin USB charger kit at Maker Faire last weekend, along with a tool kit. Now I’m learning how to solder.

Here are the Minty Boost instructions in case you want to make one too.

I think unless it’s a swarm of mini-craft or a model missile pack, I’ll stick to software.

... I managed to sweet-talk my way into co-authoring an article in MAKE, the Fall 2006 Biotechnology issue. Me and my friend made a low-cost thermal cycler (regular price: $2500. Our price: less than $50) Wee!

I used to be way into model rockets when I was a kid. However, I have bad hardware hacking habits. I tend to rush to the end and get sloppy. Maybe I have more self-discipline now than I used to. I understand that things have to be designed well and I grok the importance of details like sanding and sealing.

Anyway, not to say I want to build model rockets, although I plan to do that with my kids some day. I want to do one of the projects in Make (which I subscribe to), preferably one that’s apartment-friendly.