An enterprising young man studying abroad in Russia has turned a run-of-the-mill strainer from Ikea into a Wi-Fi super antenna using little more than the aforementioned strainer, a marker, and SKOTCH tape.
How’d he do it? It actually looks ridiculously simple:
Parabolic kitchenware is well known to some as not only kitchenware, but also do-it-yourself directional dish antennae with which you can augment weak signals with the use of a receiver of some sort. Equipped with my new Swedish strainer, I used some scotch tape (all tape here, by the way, is simply referred to as “SKOTCH” in Russian) and one of my Prismacolor markers that I don’t like to mount my USB wifi receiver as close to the apex of the parabola of the metallic mesh as I could possibly eye-ball…
After fiddling around with the positioning of his finished creation, he went from being able to see three Wi-Fi networks to being able to see a whole bunch of them. The only problem now is that he has to hold the dish juuust right in order to keep connected, a problem he says he might attempt to solve by attaching the apparatus to an adjustable lamp arm. Well played.
Of note: I wasn’t able to find the strainer on Ikea’s website, so if you’re thinking of doing this maybe you could pick up a strainer wherever strainers are sold. Like Strainer Hut or Strainers-R-Us. Basically anything in the strainer complex, which is located in the strainer district.
INTERNETS! [Worth Dayley via Ikea Hacker]
