News: Things to Do on WonderHowTo (07/04 - 07/10)

First off—Happy Independence Day! Since it's the 4th of July, let's make this week's roundup short and sweet, so you can all get back to your holiday festivities.

Things to Do on WonderHowTo

WonderHowTo is a how-to website made up of niche communities called Worlds, with topics ranging from Minecraft to science experiments to Scrabble and everything in-between. Check in every Wednesday evening for a roundup of user-run activities and how-to projects from the communities.

Below are the how-to highlights from the last week, as well as any current activities going on this week in the World communities.

MacGyverisms World

Come join Christian Miller in the MacGyverisms World and help provide the World with ingenious solutions to random problems—on the cheap! Last week, Christian shared many creative MacGyver-friendly tricks, including a DIY steamer basket, cheap storage containers, and magnetic knife strips.

• Organize Your Odds and Ends with These Easy DIY Magnetic Bins
• Declutter Your Kitchen Counter with These DIY Magnetic Knife Strips
• How to Steam Tons of Food at Once with a DIY Multilayer Steamer Basket
• Check out more at MacGyverisms World

Secret Tips from the Yumiverse

It's not easy to buy twist ties, but you can't help but end up having tons of them thanks to all of the bread and trash bags you purchase. Take them out of your junk drawer and finally put them to some good use. Yumi of Secret Tips from the Yumiverse illustrates 12 cool ways to reuse those twist ties. Also from last week, DIY kaleidoscopes and indoor gardening. Click on the images below to enlarge, or hit up the links directly following.

• How to Grow a Thriving Indoor Apartment Garden
• How to Build Your Own Kaleidoscope
• 12 Crazy Cool Ways to Reuse Twist Ties

Minecraft World

Due to some server downtime for maintenance, some of the challenges were extended, so you've still got time to enter your builds. The main Weekly Challenge for upside-down buildings will now end tonight (7/4). Also, the Replication Challenge for the Eiffel Tower has been extended (now 7/11). And the latest Redstone Competition has been extended until next week, too (7/11).

There's plenty of activities in the Minecraft World, but there are also tons of great tutorial guides for Minecraft by admin Austin Sirkin and the community. Check them all out in the links below.

• Redstone Logic: Control Your Machines from Multiple Switches Using OR and NOR Gates
• How to Build a Fully-Automated Melon Farm
• 3 Ways to Lengthen Redstone Pulse Signals with a Simple Pulse Sustainer

Mad Science World

Last week in Mad Science, William showed a very useful Arduino hack for making a solar tracker—perfect for people who need as much sun juice as they can get for their projects. The other was a cool project for elementary kids to try out, turning trash bags into hot air balloons.

• Make Your Solar-Powered Projects More Efficient with This DIY Sun Tracker
• Elementary Sputnik Satellites: How to Make Trash Bag Hot Air Balloons

NightHawkInLight World

Ben's back in his NightHawkInLight World with a super shocking tutorial on making an elaborate static electricity generator. If you've ever wanted to give your friends a good jolt, this will give them about 7,500 volts just by touching them!

• How to Make a Static Electricity Generator—Shock Anything and Fry Electronics with Just a Touch!

Elsewhere on WonderHowTo

The King of Random submitted an awesome tutorial on building a solar scorcher out of a Fresnel lens from an old projection television. Plus, shows what it can do with its killer sun rays! Toastykitten gave a quick rundown of the new Google+ Events feature. And Byron Schmidt showed how to readjust the alignment of your kitchen cabinets doors.

• How to Hack an Old TV into a Super Solar Scorcher!
• How to Use Google+ Events
• How to Adjust the Alignment of Cabinet Doors

Got Something to Share?

There's a place for you here! There's tons of Worlds to submit content to and engage with. Looking to improve your photo editing skills? Check out the Photoshop World. Have a cool how-to on your favorite hairdo? Share it with the Hairstyling World. Got a question on what ammo you need for your newest sidearm? Ask it in the Firearms World.

There's literally a World for everyone here on WonderHowTo, so search for your community and get involved with other like-minded individuals. Can't find a World that meets your interests? Then create your own and start sharing your passion with the rest of us.

Have any questions or requests for the new design of WonderHowTo? Ask them in our official forum. You can also submit bug reports there, and if you have any issues with the new site's design, you can post them in this forum post.

Have a random question? Comment below, message me on-site, or email me at jmeyers@wonderhowto.com.