DIY

You Built What?!

So We Put a Jet Turbine On Our ATV...

Meet the Whirl: the world’s first side-by-side ATV powered by a screaming 114 dB turbine

Don your Nomex firesuit and industrial-grade ear protection: It’s time to soak in some nature at 60mph. PopSci staff photographer/madman John Carnett has realized an unholy dream long in the making: an ATV powered entirely by a jet turbine.

And then he took it to the woods and pushed it to the limit; to the edge of logic, control and sanity.

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Feature

Home-Brewing Biochar in Brooklyn

A New York startup is sequestering carbon and making fuel in an artists' warehouse

Among the hot new ideas afloat in the world of geoengineering is biochar, a form of charcoal that some say could significantly help in carbon sequestration in the future. Re:char, a fledgling company working out of a corner of a cluttered warehouse in a shared artist loft in Brooklyn, New York, is experimenting with biochar production on a very small scale.

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DIY From the Archives: Make Your Own Magnetic Postage Scale

Postage prices just went up again (groan). Save yourself some change by using this DIY device to find out exactly how many stamps to slap on to that overstuffed envelope

You’ve successfully tested the limits of how much can fit into a #10 envelope without bursting its seams, but now you’re questioning how much postage you need. Sure you could just slap a few of the new 44-cent stamps onto whatever you're sending and be done with it, but that’s good money you’re throwing away.

Instead, spend just a few bucks now to build a simple magnetic postage scale, newly updated from an original article in the February 1971 issue of Popular Science.

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25 MPH on a Propeller-Powered Skateboard

From our Instructables group, a great summertime project

The retro-futuristic design of this skateboard was inspired by the look of rocket ships in old cartoons. Ryan Bavetta used a jigsaw to cut out the sleek deck and then mounted a propeller and 3.7-horsepower engine from a model airplane on the back to power it. A handheld remote controls the engine throttle, which can move the board 25 mph or more wherever he wants to go.

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A Glorious Gift Guide for Your DIY Daddy

Father's Day -- June 21st -- is right around the corner

For all he's done and all he's taught you, you'd think dear old Dad would be honored more than one day out of the year. And if you want to get technical, had he not teamed up with mom on that one long-ago DIY project, you wouldn't be reading this right now. So this Father's Day, pay homage to his tinkering spirit with something he'll use in future acts of glorious creation.

Throughout this guide, you'll find a wide selection of tools from free iPhone apps to a budget-busting hammer drill; an oh-so-convenient cordless glue gun and soldering tool; plus a variety of things to help him amp up his environmentalism, his swing, his gut, and his chances of getting a speeding ticket.

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Gray Matter

Carve Steel with Saltwater, Electricity and a Tin Earring

Power sculpting with an old earring

I remember seeing a demonstration of a seemingly magic process at an engineering open house decades ago, in which a soft metal bit carved detailed shapes into far harder metals. It's called electrochemical machining (ECM), and it's so simple in principle that you can do it at home with a drill press, a battery charger and a pump for a garden fountain.

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Build It

A Device That Gives You Reminders When You Need Them Most

To activate it, just walk by

You're late for work. As you hustle out the front door, the furthest thing from your mind is the afternoon's dentist appointment that you'd scheduled last week. You'd have probably forgotten all about it — if you hadn't thought ahead by programming a home-built device to give you a voice reminder as you pass it on your way out.

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Repurposed Tech

Old Flatbed Scanner + 50mm Lens = Amazing 130-Megapixel Scancam

And it helps that its creator is a great photographer

Tinkerers have been turning flatbed scanners into cameras for a while, but this version by a Japanese modder is one of the finest I've seen--both in technical execution and the incredible quality of the massive 130-megapixel images it creates.

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Students Tackle PopSci's National School Inventors Challenge

See plans for a solar-powered bike come together in a Miami high school

To coincide with this year's Invention Awards, we've started the National School Inventors Challenge, a contest for students around the country to submit their world-changing ideas and inventions. Here, see engineering students at Miami Coral Park high school putting together plans for a solar-powered bike.

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DIY From the Archives: A Humane Bug Zapper From 1971

Build an indoor insect trap from our August, 1971 issue, fully updated for today (just in time for summer)

Our third updated DIY project from the Popular Science digital archives involves luring and then trapping bugs that have managed to find their way inside your house--a truly universal problem. Follow along as we update a circa-1971 trap for today's smarter, more intelligent insects for less than $20.

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