I recently worked with Dudette, a ladies’ DIY group here in Vancouver and with Liane Morisette of Cold Gold Contact Microphones to set up the first-ever Ladies’ Hacking Night at the Vancouver Hack Space. Liane showed us all how to make fuzz bass pedals, which proved to be a great intro to soldering for many. The night was a bit of an experiment, but all of us were pleasantly surprised by the turn-out and overall interest in the event. It seems that more women everywhere are getting into electronics, and that women hack-a-thons are popping up. This is definitely something that we will be doing again soon at VHS. 
More:
What Does it Mean to be a Woman Hackerspace Member?  
Making cheese isn’t anything I ever considered, especially fancy cheese. But recently, I had the pleasure of taking a Beginning Cheese Making class with author and chef Mary Karlin at The Fork, Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company’s beautiful on-farm cooking class facility. We made ricotta salata, a goat milk feta, Queso Oaxaca, and a Mozzarella. I was entirely entranced by the fun of cheese-making and how delicious the results were, so much so, that I had to take home Mary’s amazing book, Artisan Cheese Making at Home. This book is thorough, well-written, and well-designed: a DIY cheese bible. From yogurt to Mozzarella to Saint-Marcellin to Cambozola, Karlin’s book leads you through the steps to making them all. While the book is great, if you happen to live in the Bay Area, I encourage you to reserve a spot at Karlin’s upcoming follow-on workshop at The Fork, Home-Stretched and Simple Curd Cheese. You not only get hands-on experience with Karlin, but you also get to tour the Giacomini’s Point Reyes Farmstead Cheese Company’s dairy farm and cheese making plant, and have a farm-fresh lunch catered by The Fork. We even got to do a cheese and wine/beer tasting at the end with the Giacomini’s cheese maker, Kuba Hemmerling. An indulgent but very educational day. Highly recommended.  Mary demonstrates stretching Mozzarella curds to make Queso Oaxaca, something like a string cheese with lime and salt. So good.
 Salting the finished fresh ricotta to make ricotta salata.  Mary (middle) helping to "see" ricotta curds.  Goat feta draining and about to be stacked/pressed.  Proud newbie cheese makers and their ricotta.  
Cool postapocalyptic cosplay from Bellingham, Washington craftsman Ivan Owen. The roadsigns, he assures us, were “obtained through legal means,” and were formed into plates by peening against an anvil, before being affixed to a harness made from belts.  
image by J0_M0
It’s almost as if any Make: Project with “mod” in its name is begging to be, well, modded. A shining example of this is John Moseley’s take on the Luna Mod Looper – dare I say it, but it’s cute! With that neon orange toy speaker, that little bit of pink wire, and of course, those potentiometers sticking out to the sides. Makes me want to take this thing for a ride. And, of course, John’s most impressive mod is swapping out the project’s original call for a Picaxe 08M IC with Arduino. I mounted all the components on a piece of stripboard I found laying around that magically fitted the width of the Arduino. All the other components are “bench finds” too. Cheers and keep up the good work.
You too, John! And thanks for sending in your story. Have you done a mod of one of our Weekend Projects? Send us your story and get a shout-out on MAKE! Sign up below for the Weekend Projects Newsletter to access the projects before anybody else does, get tips, see other makers’ builds, and more. Sign Up for the “Weekend Projects” Newsletter More:
See all of the RadioShack Weekend Projects posts  
Happy Holidays from the Maker Shed Team! Still need to get that perfect gift? It’s not too late! The Maker Shed is shipping until 3PM PST today so you can still get that Arduino, Ultimate Microcontroller Pack, Supercap Racer or anything else in our store sent out for delivery tomorrow, just in time for Christmas!  
“Toolbox” has been a staple of MAKE magazine since Volume 01, back in February, ’05. We’ve done plenty of online tool reviews, too, since then, but somewhat informally, and it’s only this year that we decided to launch a regularly-scheduled, official online weekly tool review column. When we were gearing up, back in April, there was a vacant slot in our Tuesday programming, and “tool review Tuesday” quickly contracted to “Toolsday,” around the office. For better or worse, that name has stuck, and has since leaked out from behind the curtain. Therefore we embrace it: Long live Toolsday! Here, then, are the most popular Toolsday reviews since the series began. They’ve been normalized for post lifetime, to give newer content a chance, and given a tweak or two, here and there, to account for brand-new content that hasn’t quite tailed off, yet. Enjoy the retrospective, and look forward to bigger and better things from Toolsday in the new year! #10 
Tool Review: Stanley 55-119 FatMax FuBar
#9 
Tool Review: Gilmour 528T Solid Brass Twist Hose Nozzle
#8 
Tool Review: Drill Press Bottle Capper
#7 
Tool Review: DOMA Pro PCI Open Computer Case
#6 
Tool Review: MetaWatch Android-Compatible Wristwatch
#5 
Tool Review: Fluke 2AC VoltAlert Non-contact Voltage Tester
#4 
Tool Review: Crocodile Action Ear Forceps
#3 
Tool Review: Eye-Fi Wireless Memory Card
#2 
Tool Review: Pelican 1460 Toolbox
#1 
Tool Review: Couch Spray Paint. No, Seriously.
  We’re giving away amazing kits from our new Make: Ultimate Kit Guide EVERY DAY — thousands of dollars worth of merchandise, including MakerBots!
To celebrate the release of our latest publication, the Make: Ultimate Kit Guide 2012 (and its companion website), we’re giving away at least one of the cool kits reviewed in the issue each day during the holiday season. Today’s giveaway is for a Gakken Mechamo Inchworm Kit (a $69.99 value.) Here is what Tyler Bennett of Cary, N.C. had to say about it in the issue: "This kit was a lot of fun for me as well as my 11- and 12-year-old grandkids. The kids put the kit together (with me looking over their shoulders) in around two hours and then we all enjoyed running it around on the floor."
To be eligible for today's giveaway, all you have to do is leave a comment below in this post. The entry period for today's prize will be until 11:59pm PST tonight. We'll choose one person at random, you'll be notified by email, and you'll have 48 hours to respond. The Winners List is kept on the Giveaway landing page. That's it! No purchase necessary or anything else to do. Please leave only one comment per post. You can enter as many giveaways as you like until you win. This giveaway is for US residents only. You also must be 18 years old to enter (Kids: Ask your parents to enter). See the Kit-A-Day Giveaway landing page for full sweepstakes details and Official Rules. Important Note: If you enter this drawing, when it’s over, please check the place where you registered to comment (eg. Facebook, Yahoo, Twitter). Some people are winning these kits and then not responding when we send them a message using the available means of contacting them. We want to make sure you get your giveaway!  
Still looking for a few last minute gifts? These Make: Primers are perfect for the person who likes to learn new maker disciplines. Each detailed primer has step by step instructions so the recipient can learn a new, useful skill. With primers available for carbon fiber, welding, mold making, and printed circuit board making, you have a range of disciplines to choose from. Since they’re downloadable in PDF format from the Maker Shed, they are available instantly and you don’t have to pay for shipping!  
Congratulations to Lego hacker sren2000 for this brilliant loom. I’m building some Mindstorms robots right now and sren2000′s work blows me away with its sophistication. [Thanks to Shep at Tinkernology for linking to sren2000's Lego pen plotter, which is also great!]  | 
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