Virtual Reality in woodworking sounds like a recipe for disaster—or at least a few missing fingers. But [The Swedish Maker] decided to put this concept to the test, diving into a full woodworking project while wearing a Meta Quest 3. You can check out the full experiment here, but let’s break down the highs, lows, and slightly terrifying moments of this unconventional build.

The plan: complete a full furniture build while using the VR headset for everything—from sketching ideas to cutting plywood. The Meta Quest 3’s passthrough mode provided a semi-transparent AR view, allowing [The Swedish Maker] to see real-world tools while overlaying digital plans. Sounds futuristic, right? Well, the reality was more like a VR fever dream. Depth perception was off, measuring was a struggle, and working through a screen-delayed headset was nauseating at best. Yet, despite the warped visuals, the experiment uncovered some surprising advantages—like the ability to overlay PDFs in real-time without constantly running back to a computer.

So is VR useful to the future of woodworking? If you’re a woodworking novice, you might steer clear from VR and read up on the basics first. For the more seasoned: maybe, when headsets evolve beyond their current limitations. For now, it’s a hilarious, slightly terrifying experiment that might just inspire the next wave of augmented reality workshops. If you’re more into electronics, we did cover the possibilities with AR some time ago. We’re curious to know your thoughts on this development in the comments!

Wielding things like two-handed swords in VR can be awkward. There’s no sense of grasping a solid object. The controllers (and therefore one’s hands) feel floaty and disconnected from one another, because they are. [Astro VR Gaming] aims to fix this with a DIY attachment they are calling the ARC VR Sword Attachment.

The ARC is a 3D-printed attachment that allows a player to connect two controllers together. They can just as easily be popped apart, which is good because two separate controllers is what one wants most of the time. But for those moments when hefting a spear or swinging a two-handed sword is called for? Stick them together and go wild.

The original design (the first link up above) uses magnets, but an alternate version uses tapered inserts instead, and provides a storage stand. Want to know if the ARC is something you’d like to make for yourself? Watch it in action in the video embedded just under the page break.

VR is an emerging technology with loads of space for experimentation and DIY problem solving. We wish more companies would follow Valve’s example of hacker-friendly hardware design, but even just providing CAD models of your hardware to make attachments easier to design would be a big step forward, and something every hacker would welcome.

Flying a first-person view (FPV) remote controlled aircraft with goggles is an immersive experience that makes you feel as if you’re really sitting in the cockpit of the plane or quadcopter. Unfortunately, while your wearing the goggles, you’re also completely blind to the world around you. That’s why you’re supposed to have a spotter nearby to keep watch on the local meatspace while you’re looping through the air.

But what if you could have the best of both worlds? What if your goggles not only allowed you to see the video stream from your craft’s FPV camera, but you could also see the world around you. That’s precisely the idea behind mixed reality goggles such as Apple Vision Pro and Meta’s Quest, you just need to put all the pieces together. In a recent video [Hoarder Sam] shows you exactly how to pull it off, and we have to say, the results look quite compelling.

[Sam]’s approach relies on the fact that there’s already cheap analog FPV receivers out there that act as a standard USB video device, with the idea being that they let you use your laptop, smartphone, or tablet as a monitor. But as the Meta Quest 3 is running a fork of Android, these devices are conveniently supported out of the box. The only thing you need to do other than plug them into the headset is head over to the software repository for the goggles and download a video player app.

With the receiver plugged in and the application running, you’re presented with a virtual display of your FPV feed hovering in front of you that can be moved around and resized. The trick is to get the size and placement of this virtual display down to the point where it doesn’t take up your entire field of vision, allowing you to see the FPV view and the actual aircraft at the same time. Of course, you don’t want to make it too small, or else flying might become difficult.

[Sam] says he didn’t realize just how comfortable this setup would be until he started flying around with it. Obviously being able to see your immediate surroundings is helpful, as it makes it much easier to talk to others and make sure nobody wanders into the flight area. But he says it’s also really nice when bringing your bird in for a landing, as you’ve got multiple viewpoints to work with.

Perhaps the best part of this whole thing is that anyone with a Meta Quest can do this right now. Just buy the appropriate receiver, stick it to your goggles, and go flying. If any readers give this a shot, we’d love to hear how it goes for you in the comments.