Ridiculous Gifts: TV Remote

My father-in-law and I have, over the years, exchanged silly gifts. That's really all the lead-in there is. I actually started writing this thinking there'd be more to it than that, but no. Something silly, and if at all possible, entirely ridiculous.

This year for his birthday he'll be getting a new television remote that also doubles as a subtle commentary about his age:

This one's going down as one of my favorite projects to date. Not because of the cerebral Ha ha you're old here's an old-timey remote subtext, but because of how much harder it was to make than I'd imagined.

It took almost two months, during which my family made due with only half a kitchen.

The concept was very simple: rig new buttons to a universal remote, then decorate in a hilarious fashion. Contact-switch remotes, I discovered, do not lend themselves to any sort of rigging. After about a dozen failed attempts to connect leads to the board, I eventually:

• drilled a few dozen holes through the board with a pin vice and a .6mm bit
• inserted breadboard jumpers and potted the back with hot glue to hold them in place
• "soldered" the pins to the traces with silver epoxy

I am satisfied with the result, as both main criteria have been met: silly on the outside, completely ridiculous on the inside.