

How To: Turn a 5MW laser into a 100MW laser
Tired of that dinky little 5MW laser? Turn the power up and convert your 5MW laser into a 100MW laser? A small amount of modification can produce a significantly stronger light coming out of your laser. You will need a small screwdriver (such as a jeweler's screwdriver), needle nose pliers, a soldering iron and some bonding glue to do this properly. This video tutorial will show you exactly how to turn your 5MW laser into a 100MW laser.

How To: Make a replica Yukki Cross Artemis scythe from Vampire Knight for cosplay
Watch this video for instructions on making the Yukki Cross Artemis scythe from the anime / manga Vampire Knight.

News: 160-Piece Arsenal of Life-Sized LEGO Weapons
The LEGO Life-Size weapons flickr group has 160 LEGO constructed weapons- guns, knives, bombs and more. A selection below, click through to view more.

How To: Build a looping rolling marble machine with magnetic elevator
Wow! No longer do you have to buy those huge marble machine roller coaster toys — you can DIY one! This video covers the materials, tools and techniques used to make a homemade rolling ball marble machine. If you haven't seen this rolling ball marble machine toy in action yet, WATCH IT. It's a looping rolling marble machine made with wood, rebar tie wire and polyurethane tubing, featuring a magnetic elevator.

How To: Make a Lego minigun
This is a Hobbies and Toys video tutorial where you will learn how to make a LEGO mini gun. For making this toy, you will need the LEGO mini gun kit. The mini gun consists of eight parts. Probably the pieces do not have names. So, the kid who is demonstrating in this video keeps referring all the parts as pieces. You first take the long grey piece and put a small light grey piece on top and push all the way down. Then you take another similar piece and fix it at the top and leave it aside. Th...

How To: Modify your laser pointer
In this video, learn how to modify your laser pointer to make fun, new shapes. This video will show you how to make an extremely cool new toy and impress everyone. Imagine what your class reaction will be when you start pointing to things with a funky shape instead of a typical pointer. Laser pointers are great for presentations, cat toys and just general fun. Why not modify yours and make it your own?

How To: Build hot air balloon out of a garbage bag
This is a simple and easy tutorial, and anybody can build a hot air balloon out of a garbage bag by following the instructions in it. All one needs is a garbage bag, some stiff industrial wire and fire starter bars. The important thing, according to the author, is to judge how many fire starter bars will be required to make the balloon rise without melting its plastic body. First, two long wires are twisted together in the middle to make an 'X'. A smaller wire is twisted onto the middle of th...

How To: Pot mod a green laser
Put the newspaper down on a work surface. Pick up the 5 MW green laser pen and unscrew the battery cap. Remove the batteries and put them and the battery cap aside.

How To: Make your own slingshot from easy to find materials
Can you feel your inner Dennis the Menace trying to get out? Trying to recreate the early 90s bad boy Bart Simpson look? Watch these videos to learn how to make yourself a slingshot. This slingshot is made from materials that are probably laying around your house, but you will need some power tools.

News: Man Spends 2 Years & 30,000 LEGOs Building Star Wars Ship
Paul Yperman’s Droid Control Ship has been two years in the making, and required a whopping 30,000 LEGO bricks to build. Says Brothers Brick, "Paul’s build differs in the surface textures of the model. He uses tiles and greebling elements in shades of gray to add realistic-looking details, which really enhances the appearance of this amazing creation."

How To: Make a Bridge Out of Popsicle Sticks
Do you have free time? Then build your own bridge out of Popsicle sticks. Bre Pettis goes over the basics of building bridges. As a bonus, you get to watch other people stand on their own bridges and break them.

How To: Build a LEGO snow plow
This video shows you how to build a LEGO snowplow. For this project you will need the following LEGO pieces: 1-1x4 plate, 3-1x2 plates, 1-1x2 plate with claws, 1-1x2 plate with handle, 2-1x1 smooth plates, 2-1x1 cylinders, 2-1x4 smooth plates, 1-1x6 smooth plates, 1-2x6 plates, 2 nozzle bricks, 2-1x1 claw bricks, and 2-1x1 slight slope bricks.

How To: Build a LEGO sink
Building a LEGO sink is not difficult at all. You will need only 6 simple parts: 2 1x2 thins, 1 2x2 thin, one sink element (this is kind of rare so if you're not able to find it, you may have some trouble making the sink), and 2 1x1 right-angle elevated bricks. Starting with the 2x4 thin, stack the 2x1s on top of each other and place them on the end of the 2x4. Now take the elevated bricks and snap them on the other end. Finally, attach the sink element so it is facing the elevated bricks. Th...

How To: Build your K'NEX Shark Run Roller Coaster
K'NEX is one of the most popular construction toys on the market, right next to Lincoln Logs and LEGOs, but what makes K'NEX stand out is the fact that children can build mechanically derived toys. Instead of blocks or little logs, kids use interconnecting plastic rods and connectors, which give them tons of contraptions to build and play with. Today, K NEX has even more possibilities with wheels, pulleys, panels and flexi-rods to make amusement park roller coasters, airplanes, animals, bikes...

How To: Modify your Nerf gun darts
See how to mod your Nerf gun's darts to be a little more painful than they should be. Those darts could either be just the foam they are, or the foam and pushpin they could be.

How To: Make a boomerang can
Make a boomerang can out of household items. Great for kids! Will return everytime, just roll it and get ready to catch it. :)

How To: Build an ornithopter
It's a flying flapping machine powered by a rubber band. Make Magazine shows you how to make your own for about $10.

How To: Take apart a laser pointer
Have you ever had a combination of extreme boredom and an unrelenting curiosity? If so one thing you may have attempted to do is to take apart or "de-engineer" a common office laser pointer. In this online video we are shown how to take apart a cheap laser pointer. It should be noted if you are going to attempt to do this you should only try it on a laser pointer that is inexpensive so your loss will not be great if you should make an error.

How To: Make a homemade spin toy with a button and string
If you've ever found yourself bored and not knowing what to do, this video tutorial might help you out. See how to make a homemade spin toy with a button. Just get out a pair of scissors, a large button, a glue stick, string and a small piece of paper and you can begin building this time consuming button spinner toy, time consuming as in not hard to make, but fun to play with.

How To: Build a LEGO pick up truck
In this video, we learn how to build a LEGO pickup truck. First, you will need to lay out all the parts that you need to build the truck. This includes small and large parts that are in gray and white colors, as well as wheels. Start off by building the middle of the car, making room for the wheels to fit in. After this, start to add on the blocks that go on the back and the front to make the headlights and different features on the truck. Add on the block for the windshield, then add on the ...

How To: Make an Internally Lit Ice Sculpture with LED Lights
Why not make the best of an icy cold winter day and make something even cooler? In this tutorial, you will learn how to make a natural ice sculpture in your yard and light it up with LED lights for a cool, nighttime effect. You will definitely have the best house on the block once you start lighting up your ice, so check this video out and get started! This project is super quick and cheap to create, too!

News: LEGO 1858 Remington .45
Meticulously crafted LEGO replica of a Remington .45, circa the Wild Wild West, 1858. Created by Flickr user Arkov.

How To: Build a Lego Mario
The ultimate lego achievement for any Nintendo or Super Maro Bros. fan. Learn how to build Mario out of legos.

How To: Construct your own set of plastic armor for medieval reenactment
Medieval knights did not have access to plastic, but modern reenactors certainly do! This tutorial shows you how to take a food-grade plastic barrel (at least a quarter inch thick) and turn it into a set of medieval style armor!

How To: Make your own Brown Jenkin from H.P. Lovecraft's stories
This tutorial shows you how you can make a stop motion puppet modeled after Brown Jenkin, the eldritch horror that features in in the Cthulhu Mythos of H.P. Lovecraft. Brown Jenkin is a rat familiar with a human face, and this video shows you how to pull off this incredily creepy character.

How To: Build a Tech Deck quarterpipe
This is a video tutorial in the Hobbies & Toys category where you are going to learn how to build a Tech Deck quarter-pipe. For this you will need hot glue gun, hot glue sticks, coat hanger, cardboard, card and scissors. First cut out the three pieces of the frame out of the cardboard. Then glue a support to the bottom of the 3 pieces. Now glue the card on top of the frame. To make the coping, cut off a length of the coat hanger that is equal to the width of the quarter -pipe and glue on the ...

How To: Build spinning tops with everyday objects
In this tutorial, we learn how to build spinning tops with everyday objects. You will need: round recyclable plastic lids, skewers, hot glue gun, and washers or pennies. First, take your plastic lid and weight it with a penny, then poke a skewer through the middle of it. After this, you will have a top made out of homemade products! You can use anything that is laying around your home to make a top, no matter what it is. Just make sure you have something to place int he middle and the weight ...

How To: Make your own mylar balloon
Mylar balloons are the best party favors. They are big and shiny and last longer than normal latex balloons. In this tutorial, learn how to make a mylar balloon at home, from scratch. Stop spending so much money at the party store, and next time you have a big event, make your own! Not only will you save money, but it will give your party a cool personal touch.

How To: Build a LEGO stroller
In this video you will learn how to build a LEGO stroller. The materials you will need are 4 of the small slanted bricks, one two by four thin brick, 3 two by 1 thick bricks, 2 one by one thin bricks, 2 one by one by four studded bricks, a small smooth brick, two odd angled smoothed bricks, 4 wheels, one one by two with dot in center bricks, and one one by two handle bricks. Then after carefully assembling the bricks as shown he will show you a example of what it will look like when you're fi...

How To: Make popsicle stick fences
If you've got a tiny farm, you're going to need some tiny fences. Don't shell out your whole allowance for a fancy store bought fence set. Instead make your own fences out of popsicle sticks. This video tutorial demonstrates how to create stalls and stables so your miniature farm animals won't escape.

News: Repair the World One (LEGO) Brick at a Time
Jan Vorman has installed quick LEGO-fixes all over the world - from Italy to Germany to Israel to Holland.

How To: Make a larp shield out of foam and cardboard
This tutorial shows you how to make a fun boffer shield out of foam and cardboard. You'll need four pieces of corrugated cardboard cut into 18 inch diameter circles, a craft razor, spray adhesive and paint.

How To: Build a spy periscope
This video is to show you how to construct a super cool spy gadget! You'll need some toilet paper tubes, tape, scissors, glue and an old CD. Then, just like that you'll be able to make home made spy gear in no time.

How To: Make a peg gun with a clothespin
Check out this how to video that shows you how to make a peg gun. You need a clothes-pin to make this peg gun (funny, huh?)

News: How to Make Tinfoil Cars
In this video, I show you how to build tinfoil cars for crushing with toy Monster Trucks. My son Eston and I love monster trucks. One of the most exciting things when you go to see monster trucks live, is when they crush cars. Problem is, when you use your hot wheels or matchbox cars with your monster trucks, they don’t get smashed. So the realism isn’t there.

How To: NASA Engineer Shows You How to Build a Mini Curiosity Mars Rover Out of LEGOs
You might have seen our post on this last week: It's a working reproduction of the Mars Curiosity Rover made with LEGOs, but it's a bit complicated for anyone without a decent amount of robotics knowledge. Plus, you need to have some Mindstorms NXT and TECHNIC parts lying around. If you want something a little simpler than programming a working LEGO rover, you could always build a scaled model of the MSL out of regular LEGOs. Not only is this easy to build and looks great, but the step-by-ste...

News: Full-Sized Mechanical Skeeball Machine Built Entirely Out of K'Nex—And It Works!
If you played with K'Nex as a kid (or still do), you know that it can take a lot of those tiny little pieces to build something. Just imagine how many it must have taken to make this full-sized, fully functional, coin-operated skeeball machine with a mechanical score counter. Instructables user Shadowman39 (aka Kyle) spent an entire year building this masterpiece. It's the same size as the ones you see in arcades, and it's coin operated, too. But don't try to feed it your pennies, it knows th...

News: Flying Pegasus Operated with LEGO Gears & Cranks
Korean MOC Pages user Kyoung-bae Na, aka edulyoung, constructed this beautiful LEGO automaton of a winged Pegasus. Maneuvered with a series of mechanical LEGO gears and cranks, watch below as Pegasus "hovers", flapping her wings. Kyoung-bae Na sells his creations out of his e-shop, Studio Amida. The Pegasus automaton was previously going for $140, but is no longer listed; however, there is a clownfish currently available for the lower price of $33.50. The models are so fantastic—it makes one ...

How To: Create a simple mold to cast a toy duplication
If you have a toy you love SO much, this video will show you how to create a simple mold so you can duplicate it! This simple how-to tells you what you'll need to get cloning today. This video will also tell you what can and can't be cloned.

How To: Make a fast and easy tennis ball trebuchet
In this tutorial, we learn how to make a fast and easy tennis ball trebuchet. This tool will throw tennis balls easily so you can hit them without having a partner around. This only needs a few pieces of wood and 2x4's along with dumbbells. There isn't a whole lot to this, it's very simple to build. Use two 10 lb dumbbells clamped with a hose clamp onto the top of a 2x4. Use a dowel to go through this, so it will help it rotate. Down at the bottom is the release mechanism and on the sides wil...