Paper Geek #2

I was reading some old MAKE magazines yesterday and stumbled across a bit of paper craft, more specifically an nice little origami trick to make and envelope. Now if only I had a pen pal to send one too.

Step 1,

These are nice and easy to make all you need is a piece of A4 paper, start with the paper in portrait and fold it horizontally in half, fig. 1

fig. 1

Step 2,

Fold the bottom right and top left corner into the middle, fig. 2

fig. 2

Step 3,

Fold in each of the remaining straight edges so that they line up with inside folds, fig. 3

fig. 3

Step 4,

Fold in the bottom left and top right corners diagonally to create a rectangle, fig. 4

fig. 4

Final step,

Now tuck the edges into the flaps, fig. 5, and there you have your very own handmade origami envelope. Now go forth and correspond.

fig. 5

 

Paper Geek

Boredom in the office and access to the internet leads to terrible things, terrible but creative. Today I came across this, a paper iPod dock, which i thought was pretty cool indeed. I rustled up a quick version, however paper doesn't really work quite as well as card should. Very collapsible.

Template for the paper dock, A PDF is available Here

 This got me looking for other alternative paper docks, the German website DATENSTRUDEL offers this take on a paper dock. I really like this version, though it requires a digital clock app to get the full on effect, no free PDF's for this either.

I found a few, different lo-tech variations on the docking theme, including this rather cool Lego creation and an ingenious new use for the iPhone box itself,

But the master and king of all DIY iPhone docks has to be without doubt this, a classic NES controller upcycled into a docking station, instructions can be found here, It really genuinely doesn't look to complex to create and it almost looks like it was made with this in mind. This is one project that I think I'm going to have a serious go at re-creating.

Also worth mentioning because in the future I really want to have a crack at it is this bad boy,

Yeah that's totally a Gameboy external hardrive, how to do this unbelivable act you ask? Go here.