Building a great deck for typical Kiwi indoor-outdoor living is on every home-owner's list at some point. The deck we are building here is a fairly normal slatted timber deck less than one metre high. This article is an overview of general steps in building a deck and is intended as a broad illustration of the process. The steps were noted as the different decks in hardwood and pine were being constructed.

In creating a fully automated target, with spring-back target buttons controlled by microprocessors, I was able to compare the workings of Arduino and PICAXE. Arduino and PICAXE  are two very different devices—like comparing a revolver and a shotgun. There are smaller Arduinos and bigger PICAXEs. The PICAXE clearly was simpler as it had fewer input and output wires. The Arduino has far more, and can take much larger programs.

When designing a house, first build your giant shed where you can make joinery for the house-to-be. That was the thought of Julian Pirie. But he was to take a special route—he decided to model his barn-like “shed” on old-style English oak barns, typically housing Aston Martins in magazines portraying classic cars and built with solid posts and beams. What’s more he made it of rammed earth.

Without knowing electronics, it’s easy to tackle this small robot which demonstrates how a machine can be programmed to back off obstacles it hits. Mark Beckett helped to construct his daughter Hayley’s easy-to-make “HaloBOT” which is controlled by PICAXE. You can follow the building process and get the program off our website.

Restoring old motorbikes and cars is Dad’s passion. The garage is home to four of Dad’s prize beauties all lovingly semi-restored in various stages of TTI (Time Till Ignition). The projects in question are two cars: 1956 Wolseley 6/90 Series 1 and 1935 Hudson de Lux 8 (side-valve, straight-eight engine); and two bikes: a 1930 BSA 500 cc Sloper and a 1927 BSA 770 cc V Twin.

This project to make a stool was developed as a way of introducing students to a number of basic wood-bending and shaping techniques, whilst also giving experience in several useful applications of the router. The stool consists of two legs in the form of continuous steam-bent hoops or arches, which are housed into matching radiused slots at either end of a curved seat. The legs are stiffened by the addition of smaller arches that fit between them and the centre underside of the seat.