This DIY paper cat house makes a quirky hiding place fit for your feline friends!

We can learn a thing or two from cats– they never get bored. If there’s a box in the house, you can bet your cat will find it and make a day of it. We have a symbiotic relationship that way– we buy a product and cats play in its packaging. The benefit for them is playing in a box, while ours is that we get to watch them play in a box. To make our role a little more exciting, Taesung Yoon designed Pulpet, a DIY paper cat house.

Pulpet initially consists of eco-friendly paper cutouts, which are ultimately handcrafted and put together to assemble a cat house in the shape of a geometric, sitting cat. Users can easily assemble Pulpet without any additional building components. Prepared with all the necessary contents for assembly, Pulpet is easily constructed by adhering the geometric faces together to form the shape of a cat. If like me, the shape of a cat doesn’t readily come to your creative eye, an assembly manual comes included with the paper house cutouts.

To make Pulpet eco-friendly, Taesung Yoon sourced FSC-certified paper material harvested from forests that are responsibly managed and environmentally conscious. Since cats can’t help but scratch and claw at cardboard, Taesung Yoon chose paper material that doesn’t puncture easily and won’t elicit any scratching from your cat. Further enhancing Pulpet’s durability factor, the paper comes equipped with lightfast technology so that Pulpet’s black exterior won’t fade in sunlight, measures a neutral pH level, and uses chlorine-free bleaching pulp, which protects both your cat and the environment.

Designer: Taesung Yoon

Shaped in the image of a sitting cat, Pulpet is instantly recognizable to your feline friend.

Larger than the average-sized cat, Pulpet is large enough to fit any cat but small enough to fit into any interior space.

The matte black shading of Pulpet provides a personal hiding place for your cat.

Cats love to hide in boxes because they recall hunting instincts.

Precise measuring of each assembly piece is crucial for building Pulpet.

Through adhesive backing, each piece of Pulpet can easily be attached to and detached from one another.

Circular saw blades replace the tires of this classic road bike to help it ride on ice!

Across the globe, it seems a cold front has a lot of us in its grips and cooped up indoors. No longer are we riding bikes in the sun or enjoying the outdoors, instead, we’re suffering through the double whammy of a cold winter and this endless quarantine. But for some of us, the frozen lake left in the wake of a winter storm’s rage only coaxes us from hibernation, offering more territory for us to play. For The Q, a video-content creation channel known for its quirky science videos that solve engineering problems, a frozen lake provided the ideal conditions to test out their latest project, Icyclycle  – a road bike whose tires were replaced with giant, circular saw blades.

In order to get their bike, a Corso Number One Spirit, primed for the ice, The Q entirely disassembled the bike’s 26-inch wheel systems. The tires were deflated, the spokes were removed, and the cog was soldered. The road bike’s rear cassette was first broken down into its individual components in order to then be welded and fitted for the incoming circular saw blades. Placing the round saw blades between the bike’s rear chainstays, the bike’s original chains accommodated the new saw-tires with help from a welded disc wheel. As shown in the video, once the new circular saw blades were put in place and ready to hit the ice, The Q’s initial test run didn’t go as planned.

The bike moved too deep along the y-axis, digging deeper into the ice instead of moving forward. Noticing this mechanical issue, The Q returned to the metal shop for some acute fixes that required welding small horizontal metal fixtures to the ends of each tooth around the circular saw-blade-tires. The smart fix eventually led to the success of Icyclycle since it allowed the saw-blade to simultaneously pick up and collect the ice it moved on, allowing for less force to be applied to the ground as the bike moved forward.

Quarantine is turning a lot of us into self-proclaimed DIY-buffs and this winter isn’t helping, but The Q is in a league of its own. I’d go so far as to say that when it comes to surviving this winter, The Q came, saw, and conquered.

Designer: The Q

Replacing the road bike’s tires with circular saw blades, The Q set out to create a hybrid bike that runs on ice.

Deconstructing the road bike’s original wheel system meant completely disassembling the rear wheel cassette.

The spokes were removed from both of the wheel’s hubs so that they could be adjusted to accommodate the bike’s new ice-wheels.

The disc wheel worked to help fasten and protect the steel saw blades while also providing positive friction for the bike wheels to properly rotate.

Once the road bike’s hubs were fit for the saw-blades, the new ice-wheels were easily inserted between the bike’s chainstays.

Without any means to move past the ice, the circular saw-blades’ teeth only dug further into the ice as the bike’s wheels rotated.

The design behind this wheel turns it into a type of track wheel that is commonly seen on construction sites or during the early morning hours following a bad snowstorm, as track wheels make it harder for vehicles to sink into the ground.

This modular drill might make 2021 the year you finally get that DIY project done!

DIY projects have made a major comeback since their fall in the 1990s with the onset of the digital age. From cardboard drones and paper lamps to desks with hidden PCs and foldable wallets made from leather, DIY culture inspires a lot of us to feel capable of building and designing our surroundings, so long as we’ve got the tools. Modul Drill is a modular toolset that comes with all the tools we need for any future renovations or ‘Fixit’ projects on the side. HOLO Design, a digital design studio based in Germany, managed to design a three-in-one hand tool, consisting of three of the most used repair tools: a drill, jigsaw, and circle grinder.

The operability of Modul Drill mimics that of many power tools on the market in terms of its controls and grip style. However, Modul Drill’s main power and control switches are found at the top of the battery-operated tool’s handle. This change in placement, when compared to single-function power tools, both ensures a safe transition between the different tools that come with the modular toolset and amplifies the product’s main purpose of modularity. Modul Drill’s magic lies in the product’s drill shaft, which connects the handle and battery. The drill shaft provides an inlet for the handheld tool, giving it its modular edge. When activated, the tool’s button that’s situated just in front of the drill shaft dislodges a module and vacates the inlet for a different module’s attachment. After cutting into stucco or cement, users only have to adjust the drill shaft before swapping out the circle grinder for the drill. The drill shaft also incorporates a clutch selector which indicates how much torque is applied to the drill when activated and seems to readjust for each additional tool module. Each tool comes with its own drill shaft, making for smooth modulation between the different forms of application between tools, like cutting and drilling.

Renovation and other tool-necessary hobbies can quickly tun expensive. The precision required for home repair makes DIY work a finicky pastime because only specific tools and equipment fit the bill for any given project. The concept behind Modul Drill is to make the fussy specificity that comes with handy work a little bit more manageable, making renovation and other repair work feel that much more approachable.

Designer: HOLO Design

This $65 DIY furniture kit is designed to creatively balance at-home learning and play!

Kids have been home since March and although it has just been a couple of months, it feels like years for parents as they juggle work from home with school from home! As we all adjust to the new normal, we are also swallowing the hard pill that schools may not reopen for the rest of the year. Even if they do, it will only be part-time so children will still be home for the majority of the time. To make adjusting easier for both parents and the kids, Rosan Bosch, a Danish designer has collaborated with the innovative furniture maker Stykka to give us Wonder DIY –  a set of simple cardboard kits that encourage learning as well as provide functional usage.

Wonder DIY has four different kits that come with cardboard elements that allow your child to create their own learning landscape. As they make their own ‘desks’, it gives them a sense of owning their space and creating a physical learning environment outside of school. Children can learn and be entertained as they build, re-build, and re-invent their learning space – playfulness and purpose make the core of these kits! “Adults are not the only ones who feel like their lives are out of control because of the coronavirus,” says Bosch. “Children are feeling it as well. These kits are designed to empower them and make them feel in control of their environment on some level.”

The design equips the child to continue active learning through curiosity and creativity – the modular nature of the boards let them build their own study-play area and the blank cardboard also serves as a canvas for art projects. The four models are SUN, CAVE, ISLAND, and TREE. The SUN is a theatre setup for kids to practice their presentation skills and the CAVE lets them concentrate and reflect in an ‘open cave’ that transforms into a hiding place when a blanket is draped on top (I can imagine some adults really liking this one too!). ISLAND has one of the most practical functions as it offers a table and exhibition wall that provides a surface to study and be creative while TREE lets them showcase ideas and sit under a ‘tree’ – alone in concentration, or together in collaboration.

Recycled cardboard was chosen as it is affordable, easy to assemble/disassemble, lightweight, and durable for children to work with. All sets are made to be modular and flexible to maximize creativity. “We have developed a practice with six principles to guide the design of learning environments for the 21st century. Wonder DIY is based on these design principles that empower children to reflect on and plan their own learning journey,” says the team. Everyone is a natural born creative thinker, all they need are the right tools to make wonderful things happen!

Designers: Rosan Bosch Studio and Stykka

Click Here to Buy Now!

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Checkmate, puny human…

What’s the point of playing chess against a machine when you can’t really look at the enemy pondering over moves? Software opponents are too impersonal, says the Russian behind the DIYprojects YouTube channel, and the creator of Chessbot… an awkwardly cute wooden robotic arm that plays chess with you. Put together using an Arduino Leonardo controller, 4 servo-motors, a few pieces of wood and a metallic grabbing ‘thingy’ fashioned out of mild steel wire, the Chessbot can literally play chess with you (imagine pairing two bots against each other). It connects via Bluetooth to an Android smartphone (docked right on top) that observes the positions of pieces on the board in bird’s eye view, and then relays them to the manipulator arm to pick up and move chess pieces. It also takes its own sweet time, with the arm fumbling around on both axes as it picks up pieces, giving it a somewhat humane character. However, don’t underestimate it just yet. It still pretty much viciously kills players, picking up the opponent’s pieces and placing them in a tiny cup built right into the Chessbot’s side. Cute? Sure! Ruthless? Has technology ever been otherwise??

Designer: DIYprojects

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