Hacked Whammy Pedal

I bought a toy foot pedal for $10. I didn't know how to communicate with it, but for some reason that didn't bother me until I had it in my hands and was wondering what to do with it.

Quacking Oven Timer

The kitchen stove had no timer. Hannah had grown out of the waterfowl-themed slippers that she had been given. What came next? A schlock quack duck cook clock hack.

September Swag Bag: ChipKIT

Today I received a Microchip ChipKIT wifi shield courtesy of Dangerous Prototypes  — and there should be a ChipKIT Uno32 coming along soon, too. I'm looking forward to using this to prototype some kind of web-enabled brewing system. It's good times at the Magic Smoke Brewhouse & Grill!

DIY Solder Flux From Pine Resin

My flux pen recently bit the dust. Fortunately the raw material was close at hand. Making solder flux from rosin is a snap — and a pine tree near my house was oozing big dollops of gum.

Automatic Flowerpot Smoker

Can't afford a Big Green Egg? You can build a ceramic smoker from a flowerpot in a matter of minutes — Alton Brown showed how on "Good Eats". Here I show how to add temperature control to your flowerpot smoker so that you can "set it and forget it". With automatic heating you can take the fiddling and guesswork out of using your smoker... and still have an excuse to hang out in the garden drinking beer.