A Recap of This Year’s YouTube Maker Secret Santa Exchange

Several famous YouTube makers came together over the past few years to create an annual Secret Santa tradition. Those YouTubers construct creative gifts for their assigned partners and then publish videos showcasing the results. The videos are always entertaining and inspiring, so we’ve recapped them all in this article for your enjoyment.

This chart should help you understand the Secret Santas exchange pattern:

LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER’s gift for KidsInventStuff

LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER, AKA Sam Battle, built this fun flip-dot Etch A Sketch for Ruth and Shawn of the KidsInventStuff channel. As Battle demonstrates in the video, flip-dot displays work using “pixels” made of physical panels that flip from a dark side to a bright side using electromagnets. Battle made the large flip-dot display mimic the classic drawing toy with an Arduino Nano board.

A series of toggle switches let the user choose between black and yellow, up and down, left and right, and a complete display reset. By manipulating those switches like the knobs on an Etch a Sketch, the users can draw. Battle enclosed the flip-dot display and electronics in a vintage wood case with a Plexiglass cover for protection.

KidsInventStuff’s gift for James Bruton

As the channel name suggests, Ruth and Shawn like to build wacky projects based on ideas from children around the world. So naturally their gift for roboticist James Bruton was going to be eccentric. They settled on a “party chair” suggests by 6-year-old fan Samayah. Starting with a classic wooden rocking chair, they began adding parts to create something that delights children and adults alike.

First they outfitted The Rockin’ Chair with motorized wheels, which the occupant can control via a pair of large arcade buttons. The right button controls the right motor and the left button controls the left motor. Pushing both makes the chair drive straight forward. They then added the disco, which included Bluetooth speakers, confetti cannons, and flashing lights. The result is exactly as Samayah envisioned: a party in a chair.

James Bruton’s gift for Emily the Engineer

For his gift to Emily the Engineer, Jame Bruton looked to her work for inspiration. He found an automatic boxing glove that she made a while ago and expanded the idea into a pair of Rock ‘Em Sock ‘Em Robots-style boxing bots. The two robots (one red and one blue, of course) drive around and punch each other with massive arms very similar to Emily’s own design.

Each 3D-printed robot has an Arduino Nano and a radio transceiver, so operators can pilot the robots with special controllers (also containing Nanos and radio transceivers). The controller has a joystick to move the robot and a trigger button to activate the pummeling. The robots have three motors: two for the drive wheels and one for the reciprocating punching mechanism. Each robot’s fist connects to its mechanism with magnets and to win a bout one player must punch the fist off the opposing robot.

Emily the Engineer’s gift for Colin Furze

As Emily explains in her video, she hates dressing fancy. It is just too much work and there must be a better way! With that in mind, she devised the perfect gift for Colin Furze: a machine that will dress him so he doesn’t have to. Furze is a stylish guy, so Emily decided to focus on automatic tie application. Inspired by Allen Pan’s face mask gun, she built a tie-launcher that can shoot a tie right onto Furze’s throat.

This tie launcher uses small CO2 canisters to provide propulsion. A solenoid valve opens to allow CO2 to flow down the barrel at the press of a button. The barrel has a Y shape with two openings, onto which fit two projectiles attached to the ends of the tie. After colliding with a person’s neck, those projectiles act like bolas to secure the tie. The one and only downside is that it is difficult for Furze to fire the tie launcher at himself, which necessitates the cooperation of a partner.

Colin Furze’s gift for Xyla Foxlin

Colin Furze noticed the Xyla Foxlin enjoys kayaking and that she has her pilot’s license, which indicates that she enjoys speed. He came to the obvious conclusion and decided to give her a way to kayak at dangerous speeds. Many manufacturers make small trawling motors for kayaks, but those are safe and therefore boring. Colin’s more daring solution was a sort of propeller-powered kayak paddle.

This huge metal paddle has a propeller mounted on each blade. The propellers have sprockets that engage with a chain that runs the length of the paddle. At the center is a drive gear that attaches to a cordless drill. The spinning drill pulls the chain and rotates the propellers, providing forward thrust. Except, he didn’t actually ship this contraption to Xyla. Instead, he shipped a “tribute” in the form of a small, handcrafted wooden paddle that Xyla can keep instead of maiming herself with Furze’s death paddle.

Xyla Foxlin’s gift for Jimmy DiResta

Xyla Foxlin has worked with Jimmy DiResta in real life before and noticed that he really likes spray-painting his name on things. Foxlin took that tendency and filtered it through her own Chinese heritage to come up with the idea for a custom chop, which is like a stamp with a unique seal used for signing artwork, documents, and more. They can either be a positive or negative, but always use a special red ink.

Chinese chops come in many different materials, but wood blocks are common and easy to work with. Foxlin chose that for DiResta’s chop, but first she needed to properly translate his name into Chinese characters. Her mother was able to provide that translation service to ensure accuracy. She laser cut the characters into a small square slice of wood and then attached it to a large block of live edge Osange orange wood. Finally she crafted another chunk of wood into a beautiful holder for the chop and ink. And as a bonus, she milled a massive version of the chop design into plywood using a CNC router.

Jimmy DiResta’s gift for Becky Stern

Jimmy DiResta mostly works with traditional organic materials, like leather and wood. He also likes handcrafting tools. Every maker needs a good toolbox, so that’s what he chose to make for Becky Stern.

Of course, DiResta had to put is own artistic spin on the design. He built the toolbox’s frame out of gorgeous walnut hardwood, then covered it in thick leather that also acts as a cover. Hand-cut brass accents add a little bit of flair and a leather strap makes it easy to carry. While most of the gifts on this list are fun, this toolbox is both practical and beautiful.

Becky Stern’s gift for This Old Tony

This Old Tony, AKA “Tony,” is a machinist and metalworker, which means that he bends metal a lot. Becky Stern focused on that bending and thought of a toy from her childhood (and probably yours): The Whee-lo. While you might not recognize that name, you’ve definitely seen the toy. It has a handle and long protruding wires on which a magnetic spinning wheel rides. With careful manipulation, one can keep the spinner moving endlessly.

The wire rods require precision, so Stern made them using a desktop CNC wire-forming machine. It can bend wires or metal tubes into exact shapes according to the input design files. To add some pizzazz, Stern built a special spinner that lights up. It contains a SeeedStudio Xiao RP2040 board and strips of WS2812B individually addressable RGB LEDs. Stern programmed it to animate the LEDs, making the toy just a little bit more fun.

This Old Tony’s gift for LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER

Tony loves making fine hand tools, which is perfect for someone like Sam Battle who is always working on machines. Tony deduced that Battle may not always use the proper tool for the job, as evidenced by some deformed screw heads found on a gift that Battle previously made for Tony. This led Tony to making Battle a matching set of custom screwdrivers.

Specifically, Tony made Battle hollow ground “flat head” screwdrivers, which have a completely flat tip instead of a tapered tip like most flat head screwdrivers you’ll see. To determine the sizes, Tony measured the aforementioned deformed screw heads. He then set out to construct the screwdrivers using stainless knife steel rough-cut on a band saw, contoured on a CNC mill, and then finished on a grinder. Each shaft got a handcrafted wood handle with brass ferrules. Tony even integrated wire strippers, which should increase the utility for Battle.