i wanted to build a bamboo bike. one of the neighbors has some serious bamboo growing in her yard so i grabbed some and stashed it in the garage. i have two mtb frames that were broken so i chopped one of them up to get the head tube and bottom bracket and drop outs. needless to say building a bamboo bike was harder than it looked on instructables so i gave up for now. what i did end up building was a bamboo bike rack to store my bikes. we have a bunch of jute rope and a bunch of epoxy so i spent the weekend wrapping joints. now i've got 3 bikes tucked nicely out of the way. second project was a rowing machine. instructables has some designs but my goal was to not buy anything, just use the junk in my garage. i built a rough concept using an old frame and rear wheel, a length of chain, some bungee cord and an old mtb handlebar and a 4x4 post. basically the rear wheel is mounted in the frame and the frame is clamped to the 4x4 on the garage floor. one end of the bungee attaches to the 4x4 near the rower and the other end attaches to the chain. the chain runs around the cog and out to a piece of rope. the rope is secured to the handle bars. pulling the bars pulls the chain and turns the wheel. the bungee pulls the chain back to the starting point. i've got to bolt everything down and figure out a sliding seat and a way to increase resistance at the wheel. fun to build, listening to music and drinking beer.