# The SDMB Gadget Challenge **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [May 31, 2004, 3:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924 "2004-05-31T15:27:00Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 9\ **Page:** 2
**Author:** ![Phnord\_Prephect](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/df705f/32.png) [@Phnord\_Prephect](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Phnord_Prephect)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 1:17am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/21 "2004-06-02T01:17:39Z")
Why not combine all the above ideas? Let’s make the contest: \* To Design a Musical Instrument or Siege Weapon of Not More than A Certain Size. \* My reasoning is as follows: Everybody can participate, as materials are so common as to be everwhere. Most if not all of us have, at some point in childhood, made an instrument and/or siege engine. Whether it’s an oatmeal-can bongo drum or a slingshot out of your mom’s pantyhose, I suspest we will all have at least some sort of experience here. Musical instruments are fun. Siege weaponry is fun. Sharing pictures, video, and mp3s of the results could also be fun. These can be made of just about anything you have. If you want to make a pair of rocks to bang together and call it an instrument, fine. If you want to patch together a bunch of circuits and invent the new theremin, fine. If you want to put fins on a boombox and launch it into orbit, fine. Anything goes… as long as it either plays music or launches a projectile, and is \* of a certain size \* If your instrument can hurl a projectile, that’s cool. If your projectile-hurler plays music, that’s even cooler. If you’re not even sure which it does, well, that’s amazingly cool! Whatcha think? q;} ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 1:41am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/22 "2004-06-02T01:41:51Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Oh goodie, this sounds like fun (this coming from a guy that´s been pondering all day about building a miniature metal lathe from scratch) You might want to check out [these books](http://lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/series/index.html) then, since they deal with that. Not minature, but not so large that the only practical application for it is making the barrel of a howitzer. 😉 Hey **Doc** , how about we start with a small, simple project, and then progressively get larger? Ideally the skills acquired and elements of each project could be built upon for the next successive project. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 1:51am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/23 "2004-06-02T01:51:58Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > You might want to check out [these books](http://lindsaybks.com/dgjp/djgbk/series/index.html) then, since they deal with that. Not minature, but not so large that the only practical application for it is making the barrel of a howitzer. 😉 Thanks for the link, **Tuckerfan** though to be honest the lathe I have in mind would be half the size of that one, something that would fit insde a shoe-box. And though the books certainly look very informative I enjoy the challenge of designing the thing myself, wrestling the engineering problems untill I find a workable solution. 😃 ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 2:03am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/24 "2004-06-02T02:03:50Z")
> [@Ale](#): > > Thanks for the link, **Tuckerfan** though to be honest the lathe I have in mind would be half the size of that one, something that would fit insde a shoe-box. And though the books certainly look very informative I enjoy the challenge of designing the thing myself, wrestling the engineering problems untill I find a workable solution. 😃 You’re a braver man, than I am, **Ale**. ---
**Author:** ![DocCathode](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/doccathode/32/18773_2.png) [@DocCathode](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/DocCathode)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 2:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/25 "2004-06-02T02:15:22Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Hey **Doc** , how about we start with a small, simple project, and then progressively get larger? Ideally the skills acquired and elements of each project could be built upon for the next successive project. I love this idea. Hmm, first project an old fashioned car horn. Final project, a Tucker? ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 2, 2004, 2:25am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/26 "2004-06-02T02:25:57Z")
> [@DocCathode](#): > > I love this idea. Hmm, first project an old fashioned car horn. Final project, a Tucker? Heh. Be kind of hard to do that since none of the original blueprints have survived. (Otherwise, I’d be hard at work on such a project as we speak! 😉 ) ---
**Author:** ![Tuckerfan](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/eada6e/32.png) [@Tuckerfan](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Tuckerfan)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 12:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/27 "2004-06-03T00:58:17Z")
Oh, **Ale** , if you ever decide to throw in the towel on making your own lathe, [these babies](http://www.lathes.co.uk/manson/) show up on eBay quite often, I’m told, and they’re small enough to fit in a shoebox. ---
**Author:** ![Ale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f19dbf/32.png) [@Ale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ale)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 2:19am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/28 "2004-06-03T02:19:35Z")
> [@Tuckerfan](#): > > Oh, **Ale** , if you ever decide to throw in the towel on making your own lathe, [these babies](http://www.lathes.co.uk/manson/) show up on eBay quite often, I’m told, and they’re small enough to fit in a shoebox. _Drooling_ It´s just sooo cute 😛 Thanks for the link. ---
**Author:** ![Balance](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/ccd318/32.png) [@Balance](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Balance)\ **Post date:** [June 3, 2004, 6:50pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924/29 "2004-06-03T18:50:18Z")
> [@Phnord Prephect](#): > > Why not combine all the above ideas? > > Let’s make the contest: \* To Design a Musical Instrument or Siege Weapon of Not More than A Certain Size. \* > > \ > > If your instrument can hurl a projectile, that’s cool. If your projectile-hurler plays music, that’s even cooler. If you’re not even sure which it does, well, that’s amazingly cool! > > Whatcha think? q;} I think we’re gonna build the Krang! So, are we going to have judges, or are we just going to vote? -Balance, who has built siege engines (trebuchet), musical instruments (flutes, saxes, etc), and musical instruments that fling projectiles (hoopak). [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/the-sdmb-gadget-challenge/247924.md?page=1)