YouTube

With so many platforms for Internet video, YouTube has really shined as the king of high production quality user generated content (UGC). The biggest challenge with YouTube is how to know what to watch outside of YouTube’s recommendations.

I subscribe to a _lot_ of channels, but YouTube doesn’t really appear to spend much time helping users navigate their subscriptions, sort them into subjects or make it easy to favorite certain subscriptions or anything like that. I’ve heard some people don’t even use the “subscriptions” page on YouTube and just use the YouTube.com homepage / recommended page. So, I’m starting a series of posts to help share channels sorted by subjects that I enjoy on YouTube! I’ll probably post a few of these and maybe go beyond YouTube, but for now I just wanted to start with YouTube.

Focus on DIY and making

For this post, I’m going to focus on some of my favorite DIY and builder channels. I’m mostly an armchair maker and just love to watch. They are educational and the creators have great personalities. These are in no particular order. ALL of these channels are good for all ages as far as I can tell (most of the time), but really not meant for kids and probably would not hold their attention anyway.

• I Like To Make Stuff
  • Bob is an awesome maker. I get great ideas that inspire me, but don’t have the drive to make anything just yet… I may have to make a simple plinko board though. What a great thing to have at parties!
• Woodworking for Mere Mortals
  • Steve Ramsey does a great job of building fun projects and really breaking down woodworking for non-woodworkers. His content covers a lot from small tips to slightly larger projects. His sense of humor and the length of his content is just right. One of my favorite videos is about Screws.
• HomeMadeModern
  • Ben and his friends partner with some great brands and have made some really fun projects. They’ve done a ton with Quikrete, Ryobi and others. They’ve always done projects with inexpensive materials and things that seem in reach of everyone. A perfect example is this $5 bucket stool.
• Tested
  • Tested really goes on lots of different lists, but I’d be negligent if I failed to mention it here. Specifically, the Adam Savage’s One Day Builds series (this playlist is incomplete for some reason) is what fits in on this list. Yes, Adam Savage from the Mythbusters brought his magic to YouTube and it is terrific. It is completely different from Mythbusters and is much more genuine. While he builds amazing costumes, props and more, some of my favorites are more practical builds like a File Filing System.
• Punished Props Academy
  • I found this channel via Tested one day. They changed their focus over time and now have some amazing build videos that are a lot of fun. This build for a Venom Symbiote Tube based on the prop from the movie, Venom, would make an amazing decoration for your Halloween party.

What do you think?

This is such a small sample of some of my favorite YouTube channels in the DIY/maker realm. I’d love hear from you and get some suggestions of things to tune into. Post your favorites in the comments! There’s so much amazing content being shared these days and it’d be insane to keep up with it all, but knowing that it’s out there is awesome. I wanted to use this series as a way to highlight some of my favorites.