Monthly Archive for October, 2006

Make a Spud Gun - Weekend Projects: A Make Magazine Video Podcast

Spud4

In this episode of weekend projects, I make a spud gun and teach you how to make one too. In the process, I get hit with a potato, shocked by a stun gun, caught by security, and attempt to obliderate a pumpkin. How can you resist?

This video podcast was inspired by William Gurstelle’s article in Make 03. You can go to this blogpost to download a pdf with all the instructions to make your own “Tazer-Totter.”

I record the podcast in HD and output a lot of formats so that you can have your Weekend Projects video podcast on whatever platform you like.

Here’s a quicktime mov for your ipod.

Here’s an mp4 for your psp.

Here’s a giant hd size quicktime mov for those with quick download speeds.

Here’s a 3gp and 3g2 for people who like to watch on their phone!

Of course if you subscribe in itunes, the videos get downloaded automatically for you, no muss no fuss.

And you can browse all the Make: videos on blip.tv and youtube at your leisure!

Originally posted to Makezine.

Vloggies: Go Vote for Me and My Dad!

Louise's Memorial

Pictured above is my dad and family friend, Neptune, and I.

The Vloggies are the award ceremony of video blogs and the Make Podcast is up for two - Best Man and Instructional/Educational Video Blog. My dad, Chuck Pettis, is also up for two Vloggies in the Green category and Inspirational, Religious, Spiritual Videoblog category for his Earth Sanctuary Video Blog. I helped him a lot with his videoblog, but he’s doing it on his own now! The page is a bit hard to navigate, so look at the category links at the top and click on them and then click on me and my dad’s names! Click here to go vote for the Pettis Vloggers.

M is for Murder - Golfing with Zombies

RAFN
Seattle Urban Golf is a sport organized by my pals Peter and Jacqueline that involves golfing and drinking… and joining the legion of the undead! I arrived alone at Cal Anderson Park and got put onto a team with 8 zombies who promptly ate my brains. Luckily golfing and drinking require no brains. Check out my photoset on flickr to see all the gruesome documentation of this event!

Seattle Urban Golf

I’m off to go play golf through the city! This is going to be fun. If you’re not doing anything in Sea-town today… it’s a must! (21 and over) - Link

Make an LED Pumpkin

pumpkin4.jpg

It struck me like a bolt of lightning when I was reading the new Craft: magazine; I could make a programmable LED pumpkin!

Watch the video to learn how to do it and get inspired to get some LEDs blinking in your pumpkin! I still have a lot to learn about how to program it, but it works. Now I’m going to have to make some sort of pumpkin protection device to keep it from getting smashed!

Make sure to go check out the instructional post and download the pdf to read the original article and learn about the changes I made to the project to make it work in a pumpkin.

I record the podcast in HD and output a lot of formats so that you can have your weekend projects on whatever platform you like.

Here’s a quicktime mov for your ipod.

Here’s an mp4 for your psp.

Here’s a giant hd size quicktime mov for those with quick download speeds.

Here’s a 3gp and 3g2 for people who like to watch on their phone!

Of course if you subscribe in itunes, the videos get downloaded automatically for you, no muss no fuss.

And you can browse all the videos on blip.tv and youtube at your leisure!

Posted to the Make: Blog

Playing Catch Up

I’ve been working and travelling a lot lately. I went to Brusells to present the drawbot and then came back for two days. I squeezed a podcast in there about high speed strobe photography and then went to LA to hang out and crash parties at the Podcast Media Expo where I got to hang out with my pals including Pete Grondal, Eric Rice, Greg Narain, and made lots of new rad podcasting friends.

Then I was on the Craft Lab TV show which is on the DIY network and got to experience being on a tv show. Quite honestly, it’s very similar to the way I make my podcast except there are like 10 or 12 people running cameras and mics and lights and scripts and doing all the things that I do myself.

Then I squeezed in a podcast in a hotel room about shadow puppetry. Then it was off to Hilton Head Island to go to my Grandma Louise’s memorial. Hanging out with family at a resort was great and the service was super special.

Go to the weekend project archive page to watch my podcasts if you need to catch up since I’ve been so slack on updating here. You can also follow what I’m doing over at my flickr photo page.

Now I’m back in Seattle and I just put out a podcast about making Grocery Propelled Vehicles which are contraptions that you can make with materials that you can get at the grocery store.

I’ve got lots of podcast side projects to work on right now and I really need to just make some sort of time wormhole and create a week and a half out of thin air to get them all done!

Thanks for being patient blog readers while I’ve been so busy travelling about.

Interview Coming Up “Reinventing Television”

I’ll be on Jonny Goldstein’s show, “Reinventing Television” over at phovi.com

Here are the details from Jonny’s blog, come join the fray! I’ll be up about halfway through the hour at around 7:30.

brebanner.jpg

I am so pysched to have Bre Pettis as our featured guest on Reinventing Television, the live web talk show that I host every Thursday. Bre is a powerhouse of DIY media. Currently he is in charge of Make Magazine’s podcast, producing all kinds of how-to videos (Wanna make a rodent powered nightlight? Bre’s your man), and interviewing interesting makers around the world. Bre also pioneered the use of videoblogging in education, and started up the grassroots media blog wearethemedia.com.

When: 10PM Eastern, Thursday, October 12
Where: Right here.