The Long Clock uses a roughly 2.3-meter rail mounted on the ceiling, with a single hand slowly traveling along it to show the time. It was built so children watching movies would notice time passing through a large visible mechanical movement rather than an alarm.
Mechanically, it is essentially a one-axis CNC machine. The build reuses a roughly three-meter aluminum extrusion, linear rails, a stepper motor and other parts salvaged from older projects. A carriage moves the pointer along an elongated clock face. It was created by freefoote.
The problem was simply not having a clock in the room, and the solution was not to buy one but to mount a 2.3-meter CNC mechanism on the ceiling. The clock itself is harder to ignore than the time.
The proko-rc05 is a radio-controlled car built to carry an entire custom 3D printer while driving and jumping. To cope with the printer's weight and high center of gravity, the vehicle uses a wide 2WD buggy layout and weighs about 3.7 kg in total.
The printer itself was newly designed for the vehicle around a Core-XY mechanism with a 53×53×50 mm build volume. A 90-degree hotend modification was intended to keep the machine low, but filament leakage prevented printing, so the event demonstration ran without extrusion. It was created by proko.
The linked page covers several RC projects. See the section titled “Chassis #5: proko-rc05.”
This is not just a cart carrying a printer: the whole machine is built to drive and take jumps with the printer onboard. It is a precision machine mounted on a vehicle that is deliberately heading for a jump ramp.
Rock-a-Pomo is a Pomodoro timer that starts crying when a work session ends and will not begin the break until the user picks it up with both hands and gently rocks it. A few seconds of appropriately gentle, rhythmic motion gradually fills a soothing meter; once the robot is calm and smiling, the break timer begins.
A single hard shake does not work, and rocking it too violently does not increase the meter either. The enclosure is deliberately large enough to encourage two-handed use so the user has to let go of the keyboard and mouse. It was created by nabekura.
Instead of making a break reminder louder or harder to dismiss, it adds a new task: soothe a crying robot. Taking a break now begins with a tiny piece of simulated childcare.
A 1970s Texas Instruments Silent 700, which combines a keyboard and thermal printer, has been connected to a local AI so that answers arrive on paper. The device, called Termi3, prints a response two or three seconds after a question is typed. It was built by Cameron Coward.
Earlier versions needed an internet connection to query Wolfram Alpha, but Termi3 runs a 2 GB local LLM on the Arduino and works entirely offline. Coward notes that its answers are sometimes reasonable and accurate, and other times baffling or hilarious.
A modern local AI does the thinking, but the output device is still a 1970s paper terminal. The intelligence got newer while every reply still arrives as a printout.
A handheld compass has been built to point exclusively toward the nearest Taco Bell. It uses GPS for location and heading data to point toward the destination while counting down the remaining walking distance as the user gets closer. The project was created by hardware maker Tru Narla.
Narla made it as a gift for her Taco Bell-loving fiancé. The prototype still needs calibration work at startup, and she plans to take it outside to see whether it can actually guide her all the way to a restaurant.
A compass can point anywhere, so this one removes almost every possible direction and keeps only Taco Bell. It is less about finding your way than eliminating every destination except tacos.
At Maker Faire Bay Area 2026, Udder Mayhem was exhibited as an alternative-controller rhythm game built around four silicone udder teats. The player takes the role of a barista and prepares café lattes by squeezing the teats to the beat.
The game was programmed in Unity, while the custom controller uses a Teensy 4.1. According to Make:, some visitors returned repeatedly to defend their scores.
Building a custom controller for a rhythm game is one thing, but this one makes all four inputs cow teats. If the game is about making lattes, apparently the controls have to involve milking too.
The original 1993 DOOM has been rebuilt so that its game logic and graphics run in SQL inside a database. The game loop runs at the original 35 FPS, while the database can produce the complete 320×200 frame buffer at up to 60 Hz. The project was created by a team at CedarDB.
The renderer alone takes about 1,300 lines of SQL, with roughly another 4,000 lines for the rest of the project. Python only handles keyboard input, timing and displaying the bitmap returned by the database, and multiplayer deathmatch works too.
SQL is supposed to query data, but here it is also running the game and drawing every frame. The tradition of making DOOM run everywhere has finally reached inside the database.
Some Samsung Bespoke AI four-door refrigerators in South Korea reportedly stopped working after a firmware update delivered through the SmartThings app. The affected units did not merely lose their network connection; their refrigeration function also stopped.
Samsung's online forum received dozens of complaints, including reports from users who had to discard spoiled food. The timing coincided with a major holiday period in South Korea, making the disruption more serious.
A software update to the smart features managed to disable the refrigerator's most basic job: keeping things cold. The software problem became a very physical food-temperature problem.
For his student final project, Jude Robinson built Daisy, a robot that automatically makes literal daisy chains. Two opposing XY gantries with grippers alternate handling flowers, taking each daisy from a conveyor and threading its stem through the previous flower.
The machine makes a short slit in each newly added stem, then places a thin threading post through the opening to prepare for the next flower. Because daisy stems vary in shape and diameter, V-shaped grippers and other mechanical constraints keep the process aligned without relying on sensing.
A daisy chain is about as simple and pastoral as a handmade object gets, yet automating it calls for two XY gantries and a conveyor. The delicacy of the result and the seriousness of the machinery barely match.
Throaty Mumbo built a custom GBCTube cartridge to play YouTube video on a Game Boy Color's 160×144 display. The project progresses from displaying images and video to streaming over the link cable, then adds custom Wi-Fi-capable hardware.
The video demonstrates playback on real Game Boy Color hardware and covers the cartridge electronics, battery and enclosure built for the project.
There are countless easier ways to watch YouTube, but this one starts by building a Wi-Fi cartridge for a handheld that originally did not even have a backlit screen. The setup is more elaborate than the viewing.
Matty Benedetto of Unnecessary Inventions built The Buzz Buddy, a miniature digital drinking companion that attaches to a can. Its sip-detection system registers each time the user drinks, making the on-screen character take a matching sip and gradually filling its Buzz Meter.
Over time the character evolves into progressively looser states. Tapping it makes the character dance, while swiping down displays usage statistics.
The problem is not wanting to drink alone, and the solution is not inviting another person but attaching a digital drinking companion to the can. Better yet, it changes along with you sip by sip.
At Maker Faire Tokyo 2026, the Ultra-Compact Hovercraft Laboratory exhibited its 11th single-seat hovercraft, designed to hover and move using human power alone. Pedaling drives four reciprocating compressors that pump air beneath the craft, while the rear propeller is also powered by the rider.
According to the report, hovering only requires pedaling at about one revolution per second, but moving forward under propeller power takes an all-out effort. The group has experimented with many different hovercraft mechanisms over the years.
A hovercraft looks like it should glide effortlessly, but once all the power comes from the rider, moving forward means pedaling flat out. The floating sensation and the workout do not match at all.
The problem was simply not having a clock in the room, and the solution was not to buy one but to mount a 2.3-meter CNC mechanism on the ceiling. The clock itself is harder to ignore than the time.