A wise man once said, give a kid a peanut butter and jelly sandwich and she'll eat for a day...but give that kid a crazy, motorized, conveyor-belted contraption that makes peanut butter and jelly sandwiches and that day will be a lot more fun! (And yes, that wise man was me.)

Check out how I made the seemingly impossible possible in less than three days, a.k.a. the Wurtz family's PB&J Mechanical Munchie Machine!

Maybe you've even done Mother Earth a favor and e-cycled that squeaky old doorstop of a cassette player instead of throwing it out.

But what about the cassettes themselves? The garage sale shoppers didn't want 'em ("C'mon lady, it's Meatloaf for 25 cents!") but you feel guilty chucking all that plastic in the landfill...and the big, frizzy hair on some of those 80s cassette covers is pretty fun to look at still...

Well, video-maker loup226 has come up with a fun, easy solution to the problem of all those miles of dusty, analog shelf-hoggers -- make a Jacob's Ladder. These simple folk toys date back to the Pilgrim days, but are still a lot of fun for kids to make and play with. (Seriously -- can you walk by one of these things without picking it up and trying it?)

You may notice that loup226 uses new cassettes in this video...so unless you're one of those OCD collector-types who leaves everything in the shrink-wrap, you might want to secure your old cassette cases closed with some cellophane tape first.

My co-hosts and crew have sometimes compared me to a human cartoon... so what better way to customize my car than with an old-timey "ooga horn"? These horns are way louder and cooler than the puny little factory horns in most cars, and are not that expensive -- you can pick one up online for under 40 bucks.

MATERIALS:

• Ooga horn
• Drill and drill bits
• Socket wrench
• Metal strip (about 2' long and 1" wide)
• Wire cutters/strippers
• Extra wire (about 5')
• Female-to-female crimp-on connector
• Somebody to ask you, "Are you sure this is a good idea?!"
• A car that deserves to be heard!

I'll show you how to make a really cool and easy surface for painting with light, just like I made for Julia Buckley.

Buy at least 5 bottles of glow-in-the-dark medium, depending on the size of the surface you're covering. Canvas will soak this stuff right up, so don't skimp -- do several coats.

Why sit on a regular old couch when you can get in the fast lane? I'll show you how I made the hot rod-inspired furniture for the Zaharko family's "drive-in" basement home theater.

VRROOOOOM!!

What kid wouldn't love a super-secret lair? Here's how I built the hidden bookcase door for Daniel Jesserer's "Bat Cave" game room. (The cape and tights are up to you.)