Wanna win the new WarioWare for Nintendo DS? Of course you do!
Well here’s your chance, inventive readers: In the comments of this post, tell us the greatest “do it yourself” project you’ve ever accomplished in your life, and we’ll pick the winner from the most convincing, inspirational, and touching story—one week from today.
Happy storytelling!
When I was 17 I was left home alone and wanted to go away for a few days, but I needed a way to feed the fish. I rigged a container of food to the open lid of the tank, and attached a string that would dump the food. I ran the string across the room and tied it to a dancing coke can. On our old TV it had a timer that you could set to turn on at a specific time, so I set it for the next day and turned the volume on the TV all the way up. I then needed a way to turn the TV off, so I rigged a VCR tape balanced above the remote’s off button, and attached that string to the dancing coke can.
I’m sure you can see where this is going, but to summarize, the next day the TV would turn on, blasting MuchMusic full volume. This would cause the coke can to dance, pulling the string and dumping food in the tank. The second string would pull, knock the VCR tape onto the power button and turn it all off. Voila, happy fish.
Here is what happened: My brother came home from university unexpectedly, made enough noise to set off the coke can, dropping the VCR tape onto the remote, turning the TV on and scarring the crap outa him with MuchMusic at full volume. Oh, and the fish got fed.
Probably not my greatest DIY creation, but certainly the most entertaining outcome, scarring my brother.
A few years back, I was excited that I was about to play Yoshi’s Island on my Super Nintendo, and I couldn’t get the cartridge to read. I found out that none of my games would boot. I eventually found out that a cartridge would play if it was pushed back, but as soon as the tension was released, it would freeze. I then tried to use various objects to keep the game in a pushed back position. I finally ended up using a set of rubber bands going from the front of the game to the bottom of the back of the SNES under the a/v and power cables. It worked so well that it gave me 3 or 4 more years out of my Super Nintendo before games were unplayable.
My proudest DIY project?
Get ready…
As a kid I was (and still am) a big fan of Godzilla. And in my Grade 5 class we had projects called Independent Studies projects. You picked a topic and did a project on it. I picked Godzilla. Most kids would make a poster, bring in something neat about the project, and read their report. I could’ve just made a poster, brought in a Godzilla toy, and read my report.
but no.
I wanted to take it a step further.
I wanted to BUILD a full size Godzilla costume out of foam rubber- like they do in the movies. My parents were skeptical I could ever get it done. But I persisted. So after much research I found a place in town that sold foam and upholstery and convinced my parents to take me there. We asked to look through their scrap foam rubber and the lady there, after hearing my story, practically gave us the materials we needed for free.
I did some more research (the internet was not as easy as to use as it is now. There was about two Godzilla websites that roughly detailed how the old costumes were made). With the help of my mom I was able to create a plan and started to build the head while my mother outfitted the body for me (she knows how to sew, etc..).
I had to cut out at least a hundred individual foam “scales” to cover the costume so it looked realistic. I carved teeth out of foam, built the head on top of a bucket so I could wear it on my head and see out the neck. I had to carve out his spikes, carve his tail, and at the end I had to cover the entire costume in several cans of dark green spray paint. By the end of it, my house was covered in foam, paint, and glue and I was exhausted. But the costume worked.
So I took it to school and walked the halls to my classroom scaring the younger children just by my presence. I walked into the class and everyone let out a gasp- They didn’t believe I could do it either! But I did. and it was magnificent. For that class I was on top of the world inside of my big scary monster costume.
After a while he got tucked away in the attic and sat in a bag gathering dust. I always longed to take him out again… or remake him. But I never got around to it.
Several years passed and one day my house caught fire. The attic was the first thing to go. I searched through the rubble for some sort of token of my creation’s existence to no avail. My costume was gone… burnt into nothingness.
But while the physical manifestation of my proudest DIY project is no longer around, I still remember it. I always will. It wasn’t the costume that mattered anyways. It was bonding with my mother, building the creature, and giving one damn good presentation on Godzilla!
I’m tumbling down the stairs, I can see my Jenga fortress at the bottom. I had been working on it for days. I’m nearing the bottom of the stairs.
Flash back to the beginning.
My friends are with me watching a tv show about world records. A man had built a miniature town out of Jenga pieces. We all had passing thoughts such as “We could do better!” “Not so tough!” Passing thoughts. At least it was for them.
I’m at the store buying up all the Jenga sets I can afford. I’m going to beat this guy into the dust. I’m going to build the Jenga equivalent to El Dorado and there’s nothing he could do about it.
I spent days just watching shows on ancient structures to get an idea on what I was going to build. It was going to be Roman in nature. I knew it had to be roman in nature. With some sort of crazy awesome pyramid in the center. I cleared out the living room just for this project.
Flash back to just minutes before the faithful trip. I’ve just finished taking a bath. I come out and look down at my creation. I know my friends are on their way to be amazed. I step out onto the wood floor. I slip. I’m going down the stairs. I can see my fair city getting bigger as I roll nearer.
The crashing of an entire city being leveled to it’s foundation is a terrible sound. Only later did I find out the man in the video glued his Jenga pieces together.
A knock at the door. My friends are about to see what I was really working on the whole time. A mess for them to clean up.
Do It Yourself job? Screw it. They’re helping.
Whilst still living at home, my bedroom was in the basement. I had an electric heater that warmed up the room nicely but it did not have a timer switch. Sick of getting out of bed on cold morning just to switch it on became a real problem. Solution? Nails and string! I tied two pieces of string to the switch. Hammered nails into the mortar of my brick wall to act as pullies and ran the strings over to my bed. Buldog clips acted as the switch and all I had to do on a cold morning was flip the appropriate clip to turn it on. Sorted!
I have a 4-year old who has been gaming since 2. The DS has gotten its fair share of use between me and him. Times are hard and the budget is tight and one bad fall caused the hing on the DS to crack. The top screen is all white now. My kid was very upset. So what I did was figure out that the hing put pressure and made a connection that told the DS to display or not. I ended up wedging a folded piece of paper in the gap from the top screen and bottom screen. For now, that has worked and luckily my kid is able to open the DS at just the right angle to get the display to work.
Until I can get someone to trade a DS for my PSP, this DIY trick works enough to make my kid happy playing some Mario Kart
I am a Nintendo fanboy. My friend is a Sony fanboy. I don’t know how we became friends but here’s what happened: We were suppose to make anything for English project last year. Anything. My friend and I was going to make a movie. I was like “How about we make The Legend of Zelda movie” and he said “No that’s dookie.” So I went home, thought about what to do for our movie. So I thought of a movie, and it was literally a modern version of Ocarina of Time. I told my friend about the plot and he really liked it. So we started filming, and we ended the project. At the last moment, I told him this plot is exactly like Ocarina of Time and he said “Are you kidding me??? I can’t believe you did this to me….. I’m never going to work with you again.”
That was my greatest accomplishment. Having anti-Nintendo friend to make Ocarina of Time movie.
Once I made a platforming game with some software I got from a community college. The character was named X and you had to fight through 10 different levels to get to the boss using a sword. It wasn’t that amazing or difficult, but I really enjoyed doing it and would love to make games using WarioWare D.I.Y!
Me and some friends decided to make a quick release trigger for a coke and menthos cannon. So we went to a local hardware store, put some plumbing parts together to retrofit over the cap. It worked quite well, except for the rain of coke that was falling over us since we had not stepped far enough away before the cola started its return back to the Earth after being fired up into the sky. Nonetheless it was fun and we will be stepping a little further away if we do decide to fire it up again in the future!
I throw shoes at the light switch in hopes that it will turn off at night so I don’t have to get out of bed.
Try adding a rubber band chain to your shoe for multiple tries.
Currently working (in my spare time for now
on a virtual simulated environment, which other people will later use for research in artificial intelligence. ;P
Dyed white paper with teabags and burnt spots and holes with cigarettes and matches to make old looking maps for a history project in middle school. mom wasn’t happy about my playing with fire and cigarettes. lol
For over two weeks I designed and ended up creating a box out of corrugated paper. The box was to be fashioned out of six pieces of corrugated paper: one was to be used for the front, bottom and back of the box, two for the sides of the box and the last ones for the lid. I tried square, round, triangular and pentagonal boxes before deciding on using a good old fashioned rectangle for the bottom half of the box and designing the lid Zelda style… which would play a part latter on. After I had my treasure chest layout I then proceeded to make further changes to the inside so I separated it into three compartments: two on top as to form squares and one on the bottom for the final surprise. On the two top compartments I put several assorted chocolates on one along with a white gold necklace and on the other I set spicy candies and a bracelet. Once you took out the top compartments I placed a lot of cut up decorating paper and confetti and at the bottom of it all (as to make the chest look “full”) I placed a large wodden hand carved jewelry box to, well, store jewelry I suppose.
Now here is the fun part. Once you took out the jewelry box it seems like you’d reached the bottom of the corrugated paper box but moving around the confetti would reveal a message written in colored chalk that reminisced about all the time that had passed, the good and the bad times, all the happiness that fills one’s life and so on and so on, but at the end of the message was a small piece of red lace one could grab to lift the fake bottom… and once you did that there was a final secret compartment to the corrugated paper box that actually played the “treasure chest chime” from The Legend of Zelda (Ocarina of Time if I recall properly) and thus a smaller inner compartment had been revealed: a ring and a message that read “After all thus far I can’t imagine not sharing my life with you. Will you marry me?” Around the inner compartment that contained the ring were pictures of anniversaries or birthdays past to try to sway her decision. She DID say yes and we’ve been married for two and half years now. I did that on our 3rd anniversary by the way, which is why the treasure chest didn’t seem out of place. Heck, I even cooked a full meal course that day to sweeten the deal hehehe.