Life-long maker Matt Gryczan conceived of and documented the how-to for the Gyrocar in the current issue of MAKE, Volume 23, and I had the privilege of meeting him and his family at Maker Faire Detroit in July. Matt worked the MAKE booth with us all weekend, and his enthusiasm for sharing knowledge never waned despite the long hours. We recently asked him 10 questions about his inspirations, the Gyrocar design, and the future of Michigan. Here's what he shared with us.

1. Tell us about yourself. How did you get started making things?
When I was in fourth grade, my older brothers at Christmas got the Kenner toy kits for making things: the two that come to mind were the hydrodynamics set and the skyrail set. From then on, I was hooked on technology. Soon after, I followed instructions in an old book from the local library on how to build a battery and solenoid, and I've been making things from scratch ever since.

2. How did you go about coming up with and designing the Gyrocar?
I'd seen a photo of an antique toy of a jockey riding a horse that was kept upright by a string-pull gyroscope, and I thought it would be fun to make a contemporary version that was battery powered. Anyone who has played with a string-pull gyroscope knows how quickly they run down.

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All the northern tribes in North America and Asia have their own version of it. My farm relatives use them to trim their horse's hooves. I think that whatever wave of invaders brought horse culture to Europe must have brought this style of knife with them.

User-Contributed Projects

There are plenty more projects, recipes, tutorials and primers to be had on Make: Projects!

Rob Cockerham--who has previously brought us spring shoes, a sweet Doc Ock costume, and How Much is Inside?, among other delights--wanted to serve a six-pack out of a solid block of ice. The block had to be cast with openings that would hold the bottles tightly but still let them slip loose when somebody wanted one. It took a bit of trial and error, but he eventually got the process figured out. The whole story is here. Rob hasn't tried it yet, but he thinks, as I do, that one of these will probably float in a swimming pool fully loaded. Nice work, Rob! [via Boing Boing]

More:

• Beer bottles with tuning levels printed on labels
• Hacker Trifecta: iPad, Arduino, kegerator combined in single device
• Reblown bottle glasses
• Basement kegerator with kitchen tap

Alan Argondizza of Ithaca, NY, wrote in to share the super cool skateboards that he builds from scratch using sheets of birch plywood cut with a jigsaw and hand-held router, then decorated by hand with paint pens, spray paint, and sharpies. Interested in making your own? Alan's provides an excellent how-to on his site.