So here’s another little DIY project. This one involves making your own little laser light show. Now obviously it’s not going to make shapes in time with Dark Side of the Moon, but it still looks really cool. I might even have to do this one myself, if I knew how to solder. It’s definitely worth your time to take a look at this thing if you have any interest at all in DIY projects involving lasers and sharks.

It’s a relatively simple mod. Chop the end off of a laser pointer with a dremel, put together a controller and a 1 RPM motor, and glue a quarter to the shaft of the motor. Shine the laser on the quarter and you have your own portable light show. Pretty impressive stuff. For complete instructions visit the guy’s website.

[Via Make]

My only experience with a fast-spinning CD threatening to cause damage was when I repeatedly pushed the eject button of a (CD-only, this was at least 7 years ago) optical drive that seemed unwilling to spit out my media. Then suddenly for some reason, the tray extended, and before I knew it, the CD—still spinning at top speed—actually flew upwards! I swear this anecdote is true!

Courtesy PowerLabs.org

In any case, a recent experiment theorizes that spinning a CD way faster than 56 times a second (or 56x, I assume) carries its own set of dangers. According to the experimenter, going above that speed magnifies the tiniest imperfection on a CD, potentially causing enough wobbling to damage the rotating mechanism. So of course he decided to test a CD with a Dremel, running it at over 35000 RPM. At those speeds, the edge of CD moves at nearly 800 kilometers per hour! (Or 792 kph, to be exact).

So what happened when a Dremel took a CD for a spin? Well, “the CD hummed and whined in a very menacing manner”. Scary, but it still took “quick jerk at the tool” to make the CD a projectile. Experimenting dude recounts what came next:

…the CD slid out of the holder and contacted the carpet whilst spinning at ungodly speeds. It peeled out a bit in front of me and proceeded to make its way to the door at a very high speed. On contacting the closed door, the CD did a most unexpected thing: it first bounced back a few inches, and then, when it hit the door again, it jumped straight up the door and struck the ceiling, exploding into thousands of fragments which rained down on the entire room. This first experiment was unfortunately not videoed, but it served to get everyone in the room to put glasses on and cower away behind pieces of furniture, whilst people in the hall corridor quickly made their way to my door to ask what was going on.

In other words, spin a CD-ROM really really quickly, launch into a hard surface, and you’ll get a pretty wicked disc that potentially creates deadly shrapnel. The experiment page (link below) contains multiple videos for download, if only to satisfy your visual curiosity and help you resist the temptation to try this at home.

PowerLabs High Speed CD-Rom Experiments

Post from: The Gadget Blog

The Bokeh Filter from The Bokeh Filter on Vimeo.

Awww, how sweet. You know that fuzzy effect that everyone loves where you have a figure in focus in the foreground and the background is all blurry? That’s called bokeh. Well, this lets you turn lights in the background into odd shapes using what is essentially a lens cap with a shape cut out of it (Hint: you can probably do this yourself).

The caps cost $9.99 and you can order online so if you don’t have a Dremel and a dream you can get some ready made shapes including a star, a heart, and a spiral.

via Giz

Got a DIY itche like I do? Need some inspiration? You may wanna check out these 35 creative USB flash drives for some creative juice. Some can be constructed with nothing more than a Dremel and super glue.

Like this LEGO drive. Take three approperiate size LEGO blocks, glue two together, and carefully cut out the top LEGO to fit the flash drive. Put the flash drive in the cut out and glue the top LEGO on. Easy. Others, are a bit more involved but still cool to look at.