Chris’s transmitter uses only 17 parts and has a range of 100 feet indoors.

The goal of this project is for me personally to learn a little more about fm transmitters and fm bug making (may the HAM radio gods bless me in this pursuit). The ideal outcome of this project is a very small and full functional FM transmitter that we can stick into a plastic mint box.

In order to be able to build this, we’ll have to learn a lot about amplifiers, LC oscillators, mixers, antennas and FM. This project assumes you’re already comfortable build your own PCB boards.

We’re big fans of Altoids tins here at MAKE, which is why we love this awesome round-up of 22 Manly Ways to Reuse an Altoids Tin by The Art of Manliness. Highlights include: a pinhole camera, an urban survival kit, and my favorite, the fireball shooter. If, after reading that, you still don’t know what you want to create with your empty tins, check out Make: Online’s exhaustive archive of DIY projects that involve the useful little enclosure.

In the Maker Shed:

Mintronics: Survival Pack

We’re big fans of Altoids tins here at MAKE, which is why we love this awesome round-up of 22 Manly Ways to Reuse an Altoids Tin by The Art of Manliness. Highlights include: a pinhole camera, an urban survival kit, and my favorite, the fireball shooter. If, after reading that, you still don’t know what you want to create with your empty tins, check out Make: Online’s exhaustive archive of DIY projects that involve the useful little enclosure.

In the Maker Shed:

Mintronics: Survival Pack

It's time again to fire up the ol' grill. Check out this itsy bitsy BBQ grill made out of an Altoids Sours tin. Instructables user vmspionage was inspired to build the little guy after seeing the eBq. [via Slashgear]

More:

• How-To: Spruce up an old BBQ
• USB BBQ
• How-To: Make your own BBQ sauce

You may have seen this little beauty floating through the interwebs. It's an Altoids Tin-based COSMAC Elf, built around the classic RCA COSMAC 1802 microprocessor. It's the prototype to a kit that Lee Hart has been developing. P. Todd Decker (Overland Park, KS) sent us a link to this video of his build of the kit prototype. He writes:

I have completed a build of Lee Hart's "COSMAC Elf Membership Card." The idea behind Lee's design was to create an interesting kit to introduce new people to the classic RCA COSMAC 1802 historic microprocessor. This processor has a long, interesting history and is even still used, due to its unique properties when it comes to power and durability. It was the basis for the famous "Elf" home-built computers from the late 1970s. It still has a strong following. Lee's twist on the old reliable was to rework it into an Arduino-style platform that—best of all for makers—fits into an Altoids can. His design doesn't require any surface-mount or complicated build techniques. Herb Johnston has done an excellent job of documenting Lee's efforts to create this kit (see link below).

Lee Hart's 1802 "Membership Card"