Kwa + Reims!

Bromagical Adventures.

[kwaandreims]

We made a game! We real game developers now. After our first 24-hour game hackathon we present to you...

PLANET PIZZA TURBO. You're a stranded spaceman on a strange planet. To survive you try to eat as much pizza falling from the heavens while dodging toxic alien boogers. Left Arrow (a) and Right Arrow (d) are your inputs. Hope you guys love it like we do!

PLAY NOW!

[kwaandreims]

Our close friend, the very talented Philip Calacsan, was messing around with Drum Drum Turbo and this is what he made.

SoundCloud Link

DrumDrumTurbo Link

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Kwa shows you how to wash uncooked denim!

Day 39 brings blue pantaloon deliciousness. How else do you take out 6 months of junk sweat and cuff sand? SUPER SAMURAI SOY DETERGENT and TONS OF LOVE. What if you have tons of love you want to remove from the jeans? Well.... MOAR SUPER SAMURAI SOY DETERGENT.

Watch the video and if you like it, subscribe to Kwamatics!

[kwaandreims]

Look at what we made during our latest 24-hour hackathon. It's a simple drum machine... so far. Watch for updates but in the meantime check it out and let us know what you think!

-Spaceship Turbo

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Kwa talks about Kwa and Reims 2.0

Kwa has been on a vlogging frenzy. He's aiming to vlog every day for 100 days until his wedding. We'll be posting his vlogs here from now on for the five people who follow this blog so enjoy!

What Kwa says is true! We've thought about the content we really want to make, and though we really enjoy building things, it's not very entertaining. We've got some interesting ideas in mind for upcoming content so GET EXCITE! KWA + REIMS 2.0!!!

[kwaandreims]

Build: TV Tray Table!

This episode of Kwa + Reims we make a simple table you can build in about an hour or so! Fold it away when you don't need it. CONVENIENCE!

The table top

We're using a Ponderosa Panel for our table top. It has awesome grain so staining it will make it look HANDSOME! They come in all kinds of sizes. This one is 20 inches by 36 inches by 3/4 of an inch. Like any other material you buy at places like Home Depot or Lowes, inspect the stock to make sure it's not warped, cracked or damaged.

Dry fitting the pieces together

We cut support pieces that will also raise the table top higher since our TV trays stand quite low. Since the TV trays are smaller than the table top the support pieces will also provide rigidity along the width of the table top. Dimensions of these 4 pieces: 20 inches by 3.5 inches by 3/4 of an inch.

More dry fitting.

"Prototype" it

Pull up a chair you'll use for the table and make sure everything works. Enough leg room? The table height comfortable? Good opportunity to spot problems before you drill holes and make more cuts.

Moar dry fitting

Because you're using TV trays for legs, you want to make sure you have clearance to properly fold it away. Make your final adjustments and center the pieces. We placed the TV trays 2-7/8 inches away from the ends of the table top, it will differ from what materials you're using so this is a good time to figure that out. Make sure the TV trays are going the same direction, you don't want the legs crashing into each other. The benefits of dry fitting!

Pre drill your holes!

That's a lot of material you're screwing into, so it's best if you drill pilot holes first. Make sure not to drill all the way through putting holes in your table top.

Screw it all...

together. Screw it all together. We used #8 - 2 inch wood screws. They'll go through the TV tray, the support pieces and stop in the middle of the table top. Buy screws depending on the materials you're using, making sure you don't screw through the table top surface.

All done!

For now it's a great table. Make it more awesome by staining it or painting it. Chalkboard paint it if you're into getting your elbows all chalky.

[kwaandreims]

We make music...al instruments!

We're back and we're making music quite literally! We craft a diddley bow and a cajon and have a jam session! Then we realized, we're better at making the instruments than playing them. We don't care! We'll play until our neighbors call the cops!

The great thing about a diddley bow and a cajon is you can build them for under $20 each in materials. Since you made them yourself, they are instantly awesome. 

For the cajon, we started out with a 6 foot board and planed it down for a consistent thickness to make a proper box. For the striking surface we used 5.2mm thick oak plywood. Fastened all the sides together by pre-drilling holes and using wood screws. Used a 4-inch hole saw to cut the "sound hole" and duct-taped a snare to the back of the striking surface. A very musical chair that can drop dat bass.

For the diddley bow, we actually used a scrap board 2 feet in length, pre-drilled two holes for eye hole screws. Cut down more scrap pieces for the bridge and a string from Kwa's guitar makes for a pretty resourceful diddley bow. Used twine to secure the pickup and you can start rocking out with an amp.

Enjoy making your own instruments and making sweet sweet noise!

[kwaandreims]

Cooking Time! EXTREME BEEFCAKAGE!

This time on Kwa and Reims we practice the deadly culinary arts to feed our extreme HUNGER. It’s not a game, it’s survival. SURVIVAL OF THE BEEFIEST OF CAKES.

[kwaandreims]

Kwa and Reims: Maker Faire Bay Area 2013

In this video we meet Mario, he's a human, machine, and baby table hybrid. We spy on Adam Savage, as he tries to bust the myth: "Can you shake hands with a T-Rex?" We interview Roy, a telepathic robot about his hobbies, and we investigate the cardboard shanty town on the dark side of Maker Faire.

If you couldn't tell from our previous videos, we live in the SF Bay Area, and last weekend a butt-load of Makers and DIY enthusiasts got together in San Mateo. We tricked Maker Faire into giving us media passes, and in keeping with the illusion that we're a bona fide media group, we journalized the shit out of Maker Faire. We had a great time so we hope you enjoy watching the highlights of our Maker Faire adventure!

[kwaandreims]

Kwa and Reims will be at Maker Faire Bay Area!

Hey guys! We'll be at Maker Faire Bay Area! We'll be on the scene covering fellow makers with hard hitting questions like "What's your name?" "How did you make this iPhone controlled Dalek?" and "What do you mean you've never heard of Kwa and Reims before?!"

Maker Faire Bay Area will be happening this weekend, May 18th and 19th at San Mateo County Events center. We'll be attending on Sunday the 19th, so we hope to see you there. Find more info on Maker Faire here

We'd also like to announce that we received some Munny Battle entries from our viewers and we will be announcing a winner next week so look out for that! 

[kwaandreims]

We GIF you a sneak peek at our new intro segment

Still working on the music, but you can enjoy the wonders of silent moving pictures in the meantime.

[kwaandreims]

Work In Progress: Music Box Part 1 - PIRATE RADIO

We present to you a WORK IN PROGRESS! We're trying to build a music center for the house out of an old IKEA cabinet. It's got a turntable, a boombox, and for the pièce de résistance, an FM radio transmitter. So whatever is playing on the music center can be listened to throughout the house on affordable radios. It also becomes the hub of our PIRATE RADIO STATION! Check out the video for a closer look at the music center, and how far our PIRATE RADIO reaches. BRO MAGIC!

Where we got our FM transmitter: http://amzn.to/11jvHn6

[kwaandreims]

Boston.

Our hearts go out to you, all the runners and their families. Be safe out there.

[kwaandreims]

More photos of our ironing board table hack. Ladies, start pinning away. We know you want to.

Want to know how we built it? Check that post here.

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Munny Battle + News! Louisville Wins. Austin get Fiber. Elysium trailer.

More News Time! But an announcement first! We're going head to head in a Munny battle! We're also opening it up for participation from our 5 viewers out there. So it's actually a head to head to head to head to head... BATTLE! We'll be customizing our own 4 inch mini Munnies from Kid Robot, and having an independent panel of judges choose the winner. If you want to jump in the Munny fray, here are the rules:

Must start off with 4-inch mini Munny. Order yours here

Submit your photos of your finished Munny to [email protected]. Include a picture of you with your custom Munny, just to make sure you didn't rip something off a forum. (we have no love for cheaters)

Have fun!

Deadline to submit is May 7th, 7pm PST.

Winner will receive a Munny Crown, custom-made by yours truly!

HAVE FUN. MAKE STUFF. DON'T BE A DICK.

[kwaandreims]

Beautiful Table. So simple. So Beautiful. So Table.

[kwaandreims]

Hi guys! We're back to build more stuff! This time we're making a table... but not just any table.

We're building a Super Turbo Championship Edition Remix Table. Yes, it's that awesome, because we hacked it together by using an IRONING BOARD. 

This allows us to adjust the height of the table from coffee table height, all the way to standing table height, and everywhere in between. All we needed to do was buy a sturdy ironing board, and attach a tabletop to it.

We ran into some trouble buying wood that would fit our desired dimensions, so we ended up piecing 2'x 2' plywood boards three in a row to create our tabletop. This made the tabletop 2'x 6', large enough for a lot of friends to gather around (if you have that many).

If you don't want to stain or paint your table, you can build your own table in an hour or two, or even less if you have power tools and PCP in your blood stream. (We do not condone the usage of drugs and power tools, you can ruin your tools that way, you crazy bastard.)

We spray painted our ironing board orange, and used a dark walnut stain for the tabletop. Then coated the top surface with polyurethane, to protect our new table from small dings, scratches and idiots who don't understand coasters. We love how ours looks, but feel free to experiment with paints/stains/materials.

Bromagical Tips

We would recommend a smaller tabletop length, something around 4 feet would be more stable/manageable. At that point you'll most likely have to trim the ironing board "nose" but well worth it to reduce weight of the tabletop and the "springiness" at the ends of the table.

If you're lazy, you could probably hack an ikea tabletop from a coffee table and attach that to the ironing board for a quick and cheap solution. Good option if you don't have any power tools or access to any.

We wouldn't want to stand on this type of table, or rest any large amount of weight on it... so it wont double as a guest cot. 

UPDATE: Pictures!

See more pictures in this post