Useless Machine! technology on your time s&s page 94» AMAZING Te GADGETS IT's REAL! YOU CAN BUILD! peat] of NWGQ WG The Most Ae ko, Po 1 8 FUN HOW-TO PROJECTS 3] MAGIC TALKING IRROR 3] TINY AUTO GYROCAR _ #) SOLAR SUBWOOFER 3) HULA HOOP yv POOL WARMER the Phot O'REILLY : makezine.coma record pause stop jump nartpen records audio while you write or dra imagine what you can make with it ») livescribe. ane e— ee |e eS ‘bookmark = Du find and play back video demo at livescribe.comOur New Tool for (Eres a: BY MARK FRAUENFELDER Community Collaboration I Make:ProjectS a= : ‘Tweak, hack, and bend technology to your will. my rks rc cn ESL aving built seven cigar box guitars over the past couple years (see my how-toin MAKE Volume 21), | wanted to try building a battery-powered cigar box amplifier Naturally, | referred to our Cracker Box Amplifier project in MAKE Volume 09. And when | visited makezine.com to read the comments about the project. | discovered that several readers had posted additional instructions and clarifications that really helped me understand how to build the amo. This experience drove home our belief that MAKE’s readers are our most important resource. In addition to writing our how-to articles, our readers often improve on those projects after we print them. But there hasn't been a well-defined place online to document these modified instructions, so readers, tended to post them on their own blogs or other non-obvious places. That's why we're so excited about Make: Projects (makeprojects.com), our brand new beta library of project instructions written by you. the readers. We're developing Make: Projects in partnership with the folks behind ifixit.com, a powerful easy-to- use system for writing online repair manuals. The iFixiteers helped us adapt the platform for use as aproject website, Make: Projects is collaborative, not only in the sense that individuals can create and improve on. how-to instructions, but also in the sense that com: munities (hackerspaces, collectives, educators, and 80 on) can share their own projects and contribute to the creation of the ultimate makers’ manual We invite you try Make: Projects. Start by taking alook at the dozens of great projects we've already seeded there, such as a green surfboard. a spy microphone, and a wind turbine. You can make changes to any of the articles by clicking the Edit, button. Or click Make A New Project. and start writ- ing instructions for something entirely new. Make: Projects is currently in beta, a work in progress. which means we need your help and your ideas to maximize its potential, Please send your feedback to us at projects@makezine.com. We're looking forward to your contributions! Mark Frauentelder is editor-in-chief of MAKE,