Unwrapping the 2023 YouTube Makers Secret Santa Exchange

Since 2019, some of YouTube's most notable makers have held a secret Santa event wherein each channel sets out to build a useful and/or wacky creation to gift to another channel. This time, creators including Colin Furze, Xyla Foxlin, Ali Spagnolia, and several others have developed flamethrowers, interesting robots, and general life-improving gadgets.

Button-activated flamethrower // Colin Furze's gift to Kids Invent Stuff

Known for his wild inventions, love of British rock-and-roll, and all things fire, Colin Furze wanted to get a little out-of-the-box for his gift to Kids Invent Stuff. The latter channel constructs real devices from drawings that kids send in, so the idea was to build a rear-mounted flamethrower that mimics farting when the wearer bends down. After all, what kid wouldn't find that funny?

The result of hours of tinkering with a solenoid, some propellant, a nozzle, and an igniter was a scarily effective system that could light anything in close proximity on fire.

Ice cream blaster // Kids Invent Stuff's gift to Brothers Make

Ruth and Shawn, the duo who run the Kids Invent Stuff channel, were thinking along the same line of "can we rapidly launch this thing" as Furze when they selected Finn's drawing of an ice cream blaster. Their project started out as an experiment to discover what combination of propellant, canister, and ice cream type worked best together.

Once found, the contraption took the form of a hopper on top combined with a chamber for pressurizing the launching gas and a valve for releasing the pressure. Because the gift was going to Brothers Make who deal with recycling plastic into new items, Ruth and Shawn rebuilt it from an old traffic cone, electrical panel box, and a cordless tire inflator.

Plastic waste recycling // Brothers Make's gift to Emily the Engineer

Nearly all makers are used to the process of 3D printing, and although it produces less waste than traditional subtractive manufacturing, strings of excess filament and small broken pieces still add up over time. Matt and Jonny Browning of the Brothers Make YouTube channel wanted to turn these excess PLA scraps into something amazing for Marvel fan Emily the Engineer, so they came up with a simple, efficient system to form new plastic parts from waste.

The process involves making a silicone mold of the part to be replicated- in this case, an Infinity Gauntlet from the Marvel Avengers movies, before lining the inside with a gold powder for an even, shiny color. Next, the plastic waste is pulverized and melted before being extruded at a constant temperature which helps minimize cracking and warping. The end result was a very convincing replica that didn't require any new material.

Multitasking third arm // Emily the Engineer's gift to This Old Tony

After watching some of This Old Tony's videos, Emily of the Emily the Engineer channel noticed that he only ever shows his two arms, so what's better for productivity than adding a third one? Her initial design did result in something arm-shaped with a hinge and gripping mechanism, but it was overall quite unwieldy. A second iteration swapped the stepper motor's fine-pitched threaded rod for coarser threads and placed the hinge on top, closer to the wearer's elbow. Emily's last major revision used flexible TPU plastic for the gripper instead of rigid material for improved grip and even better productivity.

Fancy pants clamps // This Old Tony's gift to Becky Stern

Building electronics from the ground-up, as YouTube maker Becky Stern does, can open up a massive realm of incredible projects. One issue that some run into, however, is how to hold a PCB or other part in-place while soldering or cutting. Machinist This Old Tony was able to take the idea of helping hands and adapt it into a pair parallel clamps. His video shows every step in great detail of how he turned a chunk of steel and some brass rod into a handcrafted masterpiece.

Face-tracking Kit-Cat clock // Becky Stern's gift to Xyla Foxlin

Released in 1932, the Kit-Cat Klock is that highly recognizable clock shaped like a cat's body which features two eyes and a tail that rhythmically swing back and forth. Becky Stern's secret Santa recipient, Xyla Foxlin, is allergic to cats, so this replacement is a sneeze-free alternative with an added creepiness factor. Instead of swinging the eyes back and forth, this modified clock leverages a Seeed Studio Xiao RP2040 kit and vision board to perform real-time face tracking and move the eyes accordingly thanks to a servo motor.

Upgraded Iron Man helmet // Xyla Foxlin's gift to James Bruton

As Xyla Foxlin points out in her secret Santa build video, Iron Man's helmet is far too heavy given the density of iron, so why not recreate it in something lighter and stronger for the iron man of makers, James Bruton. The helmet started out as a series of 3D printed molds that received a generous coating of mold release before having carbon fiber pieces and epoxy inlaid. A few days of curing later, Xyla moved onto the step of carefully cutting, sanding, and painting her helmet components, with the final result being a glimmering display piece that is now 1/7 the weight of the original iron version.

Giant robot Furby // James Bruton's gift to LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER

The YouTuber LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER is famous for a couple previous projects, but none are perhaps as memorable as his giant Furby organ that plays music through a grid of 45 Furbies and a keyboard. James Bruton wished to continue the legacy with his giant, 3D printed animatronic Furby. Micro servo motors are responsible for moving the eyes and ears while a pair of vehicle car lock solenoids rock the base back and forth. An Arduino MEGA 2560 controls all of the motors, an MP3 board for playing loud Furby "noises", and the IR proximity sensor for some external human inputs.

Heart rate drum machine // LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER's gift to Ali Spagnola

The inspiration for a heartbeat-driven musical instrument originally stemmed from LOOK MUM NO COMPUTER's (Sam Battle) coffin synthesizer concept which stops the music when the occupant... stops. Combining heartrate tracking, a controllable instrument, and Ali Spagnola's existing fitness channel made perfect sense, so Sam set to work building it. The drum is based on an Arduino Nano R3 and heartrate sensor which allows the board to increment the beat when the sensor's output crosses a threshold. A matrix of switches is used to toggle which WAV file sounds are active at each beat within an eight beat cycle, and all of this information gets displayed on the LEDs to the side.

Custom record and USB drive // Ali Spagnola's gift to Colin Furze

The final gift in the 2023 YouTube Maker Secret Santa from Ali Spagnola to Colin Furze is an ode to Furze's love of playing loud, rocking music while working. Ali composed a song from existing clips of Furze speaking, some MIDI notes, and even had some assistance from Xyla Foxlin and her bass guitar to add a few low-frequency notes. In the end, Spagnola had made a pressed vinyl record, custom art, and even a sculpted USB drive with the digital version of the song.

This year's secret Santa had some incredible projects, and it will be exciting to see what the makers in this list come up with next year. To watch the entire playlist of creating gifts and using them, you can visit it here on YouTube.