MAKE @ Parsons

Breakfast is my favorite meal of the day. I was searching through food section of Instructables for a new breakfast idea, and saw this recipe, which is not really a recipe. What is wrong with this Instructables? First of all, photos of the food are awful. If you want someone to follow your recipe( regardless of the taste), it should look good. Doesn’t it? In addition, instructions are not very specific. For example, step 2 tells you to put “faux” sausage in the skillet. What is “faux” sausage? How does it  sound appetizing? The Step 4 tells you to mix up eggs with water to make eggs fluffy, but doesn’t tell you how much of water is used. Well…. I think I rather stay with my yogurt breakfast.



One Skillet Breakfast – More DIY How To Projects

hey everyone, today i made a glass guitar slider from a wine bottle.

my instructional is based off of a picture of one i had seen before, so i kinda winged it, and it worked out very well.

THIS IS THE SIMPLEST AND CHEAPEST DIY PROJECT I CAN THINK OF.

what you will need are:

hammer (or rock)

rag, glove or oven mitt (optional)

wine bottle with long neck

box (to catch broken glass)

sidewalk

the first thing to do is choose a spot in your area that u care least about getting glass shards and set up your CARDBOARD BOX

you are then going to grasp the WINE BOTTLE by the neck using your RAG or GLOVE for protection.

Now take the hammer with your other hand and let it hit the bottle about a quarter from the bottom being sure not to strike to hard, if u don’t hit hard enough you can try again.

once the bottle is successfully detached from its neck you want to tap down the very sharp and jagged pieces VERY CAREFULLY using the hammer…you may want to keep your glove or rag on still.

now you can run outside and lightly file down the sharp edges using the sidewalk until the edge is smooth enough for you to no longer be afraid of it

and my final product

tah dah

I found out a good DIY site, which has the instruction to make tissue case cover with handkerchief. However, it was hard to follow them when I saw the site even though it’s very simple. In fact, it’s only tied up with handkerchief only 3 times. That’s all. And all you need is handkerchief, which should be covered the tissue case enough.

How to make:

1. Materials: only handkerchief, which is enough to cover the tissue case
2. Put the case on the handkerchief
3. Ties up the vertexes of the both sides of the handkerchief
4. Cover one of the rest sides on the case
5. Cover the rest
6. Will tie up in the red circle
7. TIes up one of them in the red circle
8. TIes up the rest
9. Pull the tissue out in the case
10. Finish

Here is video to understand easily.

Untitled from Michelle Min on Vimeo.

I got a sewing machine a couple days ago!

Here is the first thing I made! I wanted to make something with a zipper because I’m going to be implementing zippers for the garments I’m creating for my thesis.

I started out following this tutorial: http://www.instructables.com/id/wrist-wallet/ and found it to be really terrible. I have been in a sewing class for a few weeks and I found that I was incorporating knowledge from that into her tutorial that would have been helpful for her and others who followed it. For example, using a measuring tape to wrap around the wrist would be a more accurate way to measure and customize the item. Beyond that, the images were poorly lit and the materials supply list was inaccurate. I became frustrated and decided that all I wanted to do was make something cool with a zipper to get practice implementing zippers into my designs. I started searching for zipper pouch tutorials and ended up taking tips and tricks from this one, although its not an Instructable: http://u-handbag.typepad.com/uhandblog/2007/02/had_a_quiet_wee.html The directions, explanations, and images were excellent and thorough.I ended up editing it down to a simple zipper pouch. While I followed the directions regarding the lining, I ended up having too short of lining for my bag. I’m not sure why and there was no discussion of that being a problem in the tutorial.

I am a photoshop n00b, and obviously a huge star wars fan. As such, this instructable really appealed to me:

Adobe Photoshop Lightsabers – More DIY How To Projects
The process is actually not very long, and I was able to complete my idea pretty quickly.  The steps were laid out nicely, however there are few improvements that could have been made.  The gentleman (or woman) showed screenshots of each step, which for a software tutorial is a fantastic thing!  I could tell there would be a problem almost immediately as the screenshots are of Windows XP, and of a CS older than mine (I have 4).  The menus change between OS’s and between versions, so other than the first 2 steps, almost every other step referred to menus or links that were in different places.  The writer also had somewhat awkward spacing of text within each step which did not make the instructions any clearer.  Lastly, there were more than one syntax/spelling errors throughout the tutorial.  Overall, however, I’m happy with my creation.

I decided to do a craft work from my instructables.

I followed the instructions at http://www.instructables.com/id/Paper-Rose-Ball-.-Easy-for-everybody./ to make paper roses.  If I were to grade these sets of instructions I would give it a 70%.  While the instructions give you the overall steps that you’ll need, there are some key details that are left out.   Other people trying to complete these directions felt the same way as well (click the first image for the reader comments).

Here’s what I found wrong with the instructions:

Many of the pictures were not a very good resolution.  Having clear photos is extremely important for paper folding directions.  When the photos aren’t clear you begin to lose confidence in the directions because you sometimes doubt whether you folded the paper correctly.   As for the clarity of the directions theselves…the initial steps were easy to follow because it only involved folding the paper in halves.  Once we needed to curl the paper into the shape of a rose the pictures became very unclear.

The author did post a video of the process as well but the video is sped up so its still easy to miss steps.  Below are my results.

Iv’e always wanted to build an Atari Punk Console. I found an instructable on it and wanted to give it a try. I only used parts i had around so i had to make some substitutions.

here is the link:

http://www.instructables.com/id/Making-Music-with-an-Atari-Punk-Console/

The instructable was actually really good i thought. There is even an intro with some history on how the punk console has become popular. It even mentions when the 555 timer was introduced. There is a clear schematic that is easy to follow…i did forget to connect pins 5 and 8 though!!. There is also a pinout for the 556 timer ic which was really helpful. I was able to view the schematic and pinout in two different windows. The instructable also told you how the ic was setup and what parts controlled what functions.

here is the parts list:

IC1 – 556 dual timer IC

R1, R3 – 1 megohm trimmer pot

R2 – 1K resistor

R4 – 5K trimmer pot (optional volume control–not used in prototype version below)

C1 – 0.01 uF capacitor

C2 – 0.1 uF capacitor

C3 – 10 uF capacitor

SPKR – 4 or 8 ohm magnetic speaker

schematic:

pinout:

here are photos of the parts i used, i didn’t have any 1 mega ohm pots so i used 500k instead and i also didn’t use a volume control pot. I also used two speakers just for fun.

breadboarded up:

after building this though i was, actually not that excited with what i heard. It actually sounded like a drawdio to me, i’m guessing it is because of the potentiometers i used.

heres some sounds:

http://a.parsons.edu/~davib611/sounds/punkconsole.mp3

My wife is taking the Bar today.  She is super stressed out about it, so I thought she could use a nice relaxing bath when she comes home.  We usually get bath stuff from Lush, but there isn’t one in Park Slope. No time to go into the city today.  I wonder if Instructables can help?

I find a tutorial on how to make bath bombs it seems fairly simple and I can get all the ingredients on my way to the grocery store.

We belong to the Co-Op in Brooklyn and they have dried rose buds and a loose lemon ginger green tea.  My wife loves that combination, so I am going to use those fragrances for her bomb.

A few side notes and adjustments.

*Too much humidity might be a factor in not making mixture work.  It’s rainy today, so this might not work.  My apartment gets very dry in the winter, so I am hoping that it will balance the humidity.

*Instead of using the oils, I use shea butter. I think it going to be nicer than vegetable oil.

*Once the bombs are made I am going to coat them in the tea and rose pedals

First I measure and combine the dry ingredients and mix them together.

Now for the wet stuff.

I add 1 teaspoon at time to avoid volcanoes

The mixture feels a bit dry and is not as fragrant as I want it.

I add an extra ½ tsp of the lemon and rose oil.  This does not help, so I add more water and shea butter until I get the consistency of damp sand.  I add the rose pedals and lemon ginger green tea.

I shape the mixture into balls

and add some finishing touches.

Back to thesis

Ok. I decided to try this paper ball ornament based on a tutorial I found on instructables.

It has been more than ten years since I had my last origami experience.. I think that was an origami bird or something.

During the making process, I felt like I got all young again (well, I believe I am still young but anyways. )  and had so much fun.

Here’s the result I am happy with.

It doesn’t require any hard-to-get tools/materials or advanced skills, but you end up with the one like above which looks pretty complicated AND beautiful.

Please see below for brief steps I went through :

1 : Preparing tools/materials

In my opinion, it is the most important part because :

- papers you choose will affect the overall look and feel of your ornament.

- Good tools will make your process much easier and help on the better result.

2. Making squares

Squaring all rectangles!

3. Pre-cresing/Folding

I wouldn’t list whole steps here since I followed an existing tutorial.

Hopefully you could still get a sense of what I did-

4. Repeating the step 3

Once you complete the step 3, you get one medallion. Since we need 6 for the ornament, you can simply repeat the step 3 five times.

5. Putting together

Using a glue or tapes, put together all 6 medallions!

6. The end!

Ta-da! Here you go!

- Origami tutorial could be really tricky, but the one I followed was actually great. It describes each step with photos and provides a video for confusing steps.

- Better photo quality would’ve made the process a lot more easier, but Arrows added in photos were very helpful.

- I think there are some steps missed. It’s not a critical problem to me, but you know, it could have been.

Thanks !