The newest issue of MAKE, Volume 26, is hot off the press! If you’re a subscriber (thanks!), you likely got your copy in the mail and are soaking up all 176 pages of offerings. Volume 26 is themed Karts and Wheels, and hits newsstands on April 26th. Here on Make: Projects, we always post a handful of projects from the new issue so you can collaborate on them. From Volume 26, we have five projects live and ready for you to start building:

The Drill Kart (pictured above) is the cover project, and came about as a collaboration between Gever Tulley and the engineering interns at MAKE Labs. The result is a combination of lumber and bike parts, powered by two cordless drills, with a cannibalized office chair as the throne.

The Simple Longboard, written by MAKE editor-in-chief Mark Frauenfelder, shows you how to make a fun and easy skateboard for cruising around. Mark checked out instructions online and found that there was a much simpler way to make on, and shared his findings with us.

One of my favorites is the Flame Tube, a waveform visualizer by practical pyromaniac William Gurstelle, frequent contributor to MAKE. Using steel conduit and a loudspeaker, connected to an amp and a music source, hook up a propane tank with a regulator, and turn sound waves into standing pressure waves — expressed in fire. When the interns did the test build, we had a lot of fun trying different genres of music to see which made the flames dance the most.

Next up is the practical Solar Food Dryer by off-grid aficionado Abe Connally. With the summer gardening season around the corner, this is the perfect project for preserving your harvest well past growing season.

And our final offering from MAKE Volume 26 is the Truth Meter, which is excerpted from the Biosensing Primer by Sean M. Montgomery and Ira M. Laefsky. Biosensing allows you to track your body’s signals and brain waves and use them to control things. Sweat increases the electrical conductance of your skin, and when this conductance is measured and tied to arousing stimuli, it’s referred to as galvanic skin response (GSR). The Truth Meter measures GSR for display on an LED or for input to a microcontroller.

But these five projects are just the tip of the iceberg of what MAKE Volume 26 has to offer. This latest issue shows you how to build wheeled wonders that you and the kids can race around the neighborhood in DIY style. Put a mini gasoline engine on a bicycle. Make a brain-teasing mini propeller cart that outruns the wind that powers it. Weld together the “Weekend Warrior” soapbox racer, the winner of our online Karts and Wheels contest, then strap on your helmet and five-point safety harness, and race downhill at highway speeds just inches above the road!

In addition to karts, you’ll find plenty of other projects that only MAKE could give you:

An aquaculture tank for growing fresh Spirulina algae “superfood” in a sunny window
An addictive pocket electronic sound looper that lets you play wild rhythms using just two knobs and one button
A mesmerizing fire tube with dancing flames that keep time to music and make sounds waves visible
An introduction to “biosensing” the unconscious signals generated by our bodies and brains, including a “Truth Meter” project that detects stress and a “Brain Blinker” that lights LEDs based on your brainwaves.
A self-watering planter based on an Aztec design, and a fruit juicer based on an ancient Egyptian design.
A tutorial on how to add buttons to various electronics devices in order to control them better.
You’ll also learn how Garnet Hertz hacked the classic 80s arcade road racing game Outrun to create a vehicle that really drives around (slowly), with the real-world roadway in front appearing onscreen just like in the video game. And Mitch Altman shares his advice on how to get your electronics inventions manufactured and commercially distributed without losing your integrity or your mind.

Look for MAKE Volume 26 on newsstands on April 26th or subscribe!

We got some really great, creative entries for our MAKE Karts and Wheels Contest. Folks were tasked with making something original and documenting the build in Make: Projects, with the only criteria being that their creation have wheels and can carry a person. The editors of MAKE magazine then judged entries based on creativity, execution, written documentation, and photography. The Grand Prize winner is (drumroll, please) Jeremy Ashinghurst with his Adult Soapbox Kart (pictured above). Not only is Jeremy’s kart a thing of pro-style beauty, but his documentation is inspirational, well-photographed, and clearly written. Look for his project to be published on the pages of the upcoming MAKE Volume 26. Congrats Jeremy!

We had three Runners Up as well, including the well-documented and stylish Teardrop Camper Trailer by Werner Strama, built upon the salvaged frame of a dilapidated trailer:

Next up is the deliciously dangerous and funny Bike Buh Cue by Tho X. Bui, originally made for the Tour de Fat bike parade, to hand out hamburgers and hot dogs and raise money for the homeless:

The last runner up is Brad Wong’s Quad Roller Skates project, using trucks and wheels from two old skateboards, along with a pair of shoes, to make custom roller skates:

And we just have to give an honorable mention to Monika Wuhrer for making us smile with her Soapbox Out of Found Materials:

Congrats to all the winners, and a big maker thanks to everyone who entered and shared their builds with us! Look for Jeremy’s project in MAKE Volume 26, and keeps your ears to the wire for the next contest, Robots!

We’re happy to announce that we’ve recently rolled out two new useful functions: the first is that you can embed YouTube or Vimeo videos in the introduction field of any project, and the second is that you can easily embed any project in its entirety anywhere else on the web. Check out the Soda Bottle Rocket project from MAKE Volume 05 to see how a vid looks in layout (with size=large and alignment=center). And check out the Wiki Syntax guide for the video embed code.

As for embedding a whole project elsewhere, all projects now have a handy Embed link under Formats. Grab it, drop it, and get the entire project embedded.

We’ve working hard to fine-tune Make: Projects into a truly valuable tool for makers of all stripes. If you have feedback, let us know!

UPDATE: The deadline has been extended until 11:59 PDT on January 27, 2011.

Wanna get published in MAKE magazine? Here’s your chance! We’ve been having a lot of fun here on Make: Projects, seeing the clever projects shared by our community. So we came up with a simple little contest to showcase your skills (and give you an excuse to get your build on over the holidays).

The theme for the upcoming MAKE Volume 26 is “Karts and Wheels,” and we know you’ve got some great builds that fit the bill. Go-karts, electric bikes and scooters, biodiesel buggies, powered skateboards, self-balancing whatsits, illegal soapbox derby cars, taco trikes, high-tech chariots — if it’s got wheels and carries a person, we want to see it.

The rules are simple:

1. Come up with a cool, original go-kart or alt wheels project fitting the Volume 26 theme.
2. Document your build step-by-step with clear instructions and photos, then share it on Make: Projects.
3. Send an email to wheels@makeprojects.com with a link to your Make: Projects entry when you’re done. Easy!

The editors of MAKE will then pick the best project, polish it up, and publish it in MAKE Volume 26. Entries will be judged on the quality of the documentation as well as the originality/coolness of the project. The deadline for entries is 11:59 PDT on January 17, 2011.

All entries will be judged by the editorial staff of MAKE based on the following judging criteria: (a) Creativity of Idea: 25%; (b) Project Execution: 25%; (c) Quality of Written Documentation: 25%; and (d) Quality of Documentation Photography: 25%. The entry with the highest total score among all judging criteria will be the chosen as the Grand Prize Winner.

The winning entry will be published in MAKE Volume 26, and will be a Featured Project on Make: Projects. The 3 runners-up will be featured on Makezine.com and mentioned in MAKE Volume 26.

Questions? Post them in the comments below. Good luck, and most importantly, have fun!

Last week I got an email from a reader in Iceland, Sindri Diego, who mentioned that he had documented a simple way to create shaped bokeh effects in photography, by crafting a lens cover (bokeh means “blur” in Japanese). I asked him if he would enter his build as a project in Make: Projects, and later that night I noticed that he had created an account and entered the project. The build is indeed really simple, but it’s a technique I was not familiar with before Sindri took the time to share it. And from the looks of it, I’m not the only one out there who found it interesting, since it’s garnered close to 5,000 views in a week.

Some of the best content we have in our growing DIY library is knowledge contributed by our community members. Another prime example is the Install a Penny Countertop project from the fine folks at Artifacture Studios. I met Shane Selman and Michael Reilly of Artifacture at Maker Faire Bay Area 2010 and chatted with them about Make: Projects, which we were just working on launching in beta at the time. They shared their project (super cool!), provided us with lots of great usability feedback, and now that build information is out there for the whole community to use freely. To date, their project has gotten about 87,000 views.

Every one of us knows how to do or make something. What would happen if we all shared our knowledge, even just one project, with one another? As cliche as it sounds, sharing really is caring. Taking the time to document what you know and share it with the maker community is special. You don’t have to be the expert in the field, just someone who cares enough to document and share. What do you know how to make?

With Halloween, our favorite maker holiday, right around the corner, we all have our creative caps on brainstorming clever decor, costume, and party ideas. A while back, we published our Make: Halloween Special Edition, chock full of haunted house how-tos, crazy costumes, fiendish food, and monstrous makeup. We’ve been entering a bunch of the projects here on Make: Projects, and you can check them all out on the Halloween topic page.

We also have two Halloween contests going on right now. Make: Online is running a DIY Haunts animatronic prop contest, sponsored by Jameco Electronics. Your goal is to build a Halloween prop that moves, lights up, and makes noise in an appropriately spooky manner, like the classic Flying Crank Ghost or the Mini Electric Chair. You’ll be graded the cleverness of your design, the thoroughness of your documentation, and the clarity of your presentation.

If you’re more of the crafty persuasion, enter your homemade costumes, party decor, and drink or food recipes in the CRAFT Halloween Contest for your chance to win some great prizes. Winners will be picked based on creativity, execution, documentation, and presentation. Check out the appetizing Meat Head and the Headless Marie Antoinette costume for inspiration.

What projects do you have in the works for Halloween? Enter your build and share your know-how with the community!

A lot of folks have been requesting video embedding, and we’re happy to announce that you can now embed Vimeo videos. Currently, you can only embed videos from Vimeo, and they can only live in the Introduction of a project or on a wiki page, but we’re excited to have this feature. While we feel that step by step instructions are better served by great images accompanied by clear text (as opposed to playing and pausing a video), videos are useful for showing your project in action or demonstrating a part of the build.

Check out the first project that has an embedded video:
Musical Drawdio Puppet by Angela Sheehan

Here is the syntax you would use to drop the video in:
[video|http://www.vimeo.com/14946492|size=small|align=left]

For more details on the syntax, head to the Wiki Syntax guide.

Almost 2 months after our beta launch, and we have close to 1,500 community members, 175 awesome projects, and we’re growing steadily every day! A big thanks to everyone who’s signed up and contributed their knowledge and feedback so far. It’s really exciting watching the knowledge base and community grow.

This is a community-based site so our members are our most valuable asset (yes, we mean you!). if you haven’t signed up yet, join us, and if you have know-how to contribute, enter a new project. It’s fun and easy.

Need to get started? Signing up for an account is as easy as clicking “Join us” at the top of the homepage, and entering your email address, name, and password. That’s it! You’re instantly a part of the community, and in good company with fellow makers of all stripes, including teachers, scientists, engineers, crafters, roboticists, and designers.

Then browse by subject area or use the search bar to type in keywords. Of course, you never know what you might stumble on if you just flip through the multiple pages of projects. We’ve started by offering a wide variety of projects that have appeared on the pages of MAKE magazine. This is our way of freeing up the projects to go out into the world and be made better by our knowledgeable community. The site is a wiki, so you can edit anything and build on existing projects. For example, have you built one of the projects in Make: Projects and perhaps taken a better image for one of the steps? You can add it and in effect help out the next person who is going to make the project.

We know you know how to make cool and useful things, so why not post a project or two and share that knowledge with the rest of the community? The system is super easy to use. Just click “Contribute a new project” at the top of the homepage and get started. The screens are pretty self-explanatory, but we also have a User’s Guide up to help you. User-contributed projects so far include a Penny Countertop, a Musical Drawdio Puppet, Rice Krispies Burgers, and DIY Gears. Can’t wait to see what you come up with!