Drop an offering into the machine and it rapidly strikes a bell from four directions. The device, called the High-Speed Worldly Desires Removal Machine, automates the 108 bell strikes traditionally associated with New Year's Eve in Japan.
Its creator, known as Ningen no Hashikure, rebuilt an earlier version using traditional Japanese temple architecture as a reference. The wooden-looking bell tower is actually assembled from 3D-printed plastic parts without screws, with electrically operated strikers built into the structure.
A ritual of 108 bell strikes has been turned into a rapid-fire batch operation. Even New Year's Eve bells can apparently be put on fast-forward.
A giant rotating ring displays scrolling text using black and white marbles as pixels. Radial channels around the ring each hold seven marbles to form a vertical column of the display. Once a column has passed, its marbles roll back down to be reused for the next characters.
Creator Ivan Miranda built the mechanism with just three motors to rotate the ring, select the marble colors and feed the marbles into the channels.
To make text scroll, the pixels themselves have to roll around a giant wheel. The display is doing almost as much moving as the message.
iDangle is a ceiling-mounted phone holder designed for watching videos while lying down. Flip a switch to bring the holder down, attach a phone magnetically, then remove the phone and send the holder back up when finished.
Inventor Matty Benedetto presents it as part of his Unnecessary Inventions collection.
To avoid holding a phone in bed, the ceiling now has to do the work. That's a lot of hardware to rest your arms.
A maker added a linkage and rubber bands to make a Mini 4WD car jump. The first version held its legs in place with a cable tie, which had to be cut with nippers to release the jump.
A second version introduced remote-controlled release and achieved more stable jumps, but increasing the number of rubber bands to 32 dislodged a press-fit axle. Jumping while driving remains a goal for the next version.
The shortcut over the track has become a project in figuring out how to jump at all.
Carlos Reyes built a functional version of Homer Simpson's electric hammer. The 3D-printed prototype moves the hammer back and forth automatically, after design refinements addressing friction, alignment and strength.
A lot of work went into avoiding the work of swinging a hammer.
FilaLoom adds a yarn-placement toolhead alongside a conventional plastic-extrusion head. It can place yarn at selected points during a print, producing mesh-like structures and three-dimensional textile-like shapes that combine thread and plastic.
Developed by Joram de Haas, the system lays down the thread automatically by switching toolheads rather than requiring someone to insert it by hand.
Give a 3D printer some yarn, and suddenly it starts looking like a loom.
A hand-cranked pencil sharpener moves a blade back and forth along curved tracks while advancing and rotating the pencil in small steps. Chronova Engineering devised an intermittent gear mechanism to make the pencil turn while producing a concave tip.
The mechanism works, but sharpening is slow and labor-intensive rather than practical.
Two elaborate motions, one tiny pencil tip. Ordinary sharpeners suddenly seem remarkably efficient.
The Brass Thumb Pomodoro is a steampunk-style desk timer that rewards a completed 25-minute work session by popping a thumbs-up figure out of its case. A side switch selects work or rest mode, with five-minute breaks between sessions.
Maker Krzysztof Jamroz built the USB-powered device with Arduino electronics and 3D-printed parts. Assembly instructions and code are available on GitHub.
Finish 25 minutes of work and a mechanical thumb pops up to congratulate you. At least one thing on your desk is guaranteed to appreciate your effort.
KeyboaStick is a 3D-printed mechanism that replaces the W, A, S and D keycaps with parts linked to a small joystick. Tilting the stick presses the corresponding keyboard keys through articulated linkages.
Created by Korean maker FunOrNothing, the design uses mostly print-in-place joints. A Make: editor tested it by playing Sonic the Hedgehog 2 with the modified keyboard.
Four keyboard keys already control movement, but this adds a miniature joystick to press them instead. It's a controller built on top of another controller.
Sherobo looks like a round watermelon, then unfolds four legs and walks. It was designed around the Japanese watermelon-splitting game, with a watermelon-shaped robot that can flee on foot rather than sit still for a hit.
Creator Ryota Kobayashi built the 12-degree-of-freedom quadruped with a folding linkage mechanism that lets it return to a spherical shape. The project page includes build instructions and pictures of the transformation.
The watermelon in a watermelon-splitting game is finally able to run away. It seems the fruit has decided to participate on its own terms.
A pair of traditional Japanese geta sandals moves forward on its own with a little hopping motion. Turn it over and the mechanism is made from LEGO parts and a motor. It can also move backward.
The device was exhibited by Sugoi Lab at Maker Faire Tokyo 2026 and featured in a report on the event.
See the section 'コアメモリにダーツ、LEGO —— 古い技術と遊び心' in the linked article.
Geta are supposed to help a person walk, but these sandals can walk off without anyone wearing them. The footwear is doing the traveling.
To reduce the need to count tiny screws and nuts by hand when packing clock kits, a set of dedicated dispensers was built to release fixed quantities. Laser-cut acrylic channels line the parts up, and operating a lever drops the required number.
One dispenser releases six nuts at a time and another releases three magnets. The screw version went through several revisions to its tracks and hopper and was eventually expanded to hold more than fifteen sets ready to distribute into paper cups. The maker is mitxela.
Not wanting to miscount six tiny parts has turned into something resembling a custom ammunition magazine. The counting task disappeared into a surprisingly substantial piece of machinery.
A ritual of 108 bell strikes has been turned into a rapid-fire batch operation. Even New Year's Eve bells can apparently be put on fast-forward.