Hasta La Gadget!

A few months ago I talked about a Kickstarter project called the LightUp, an electronics kit for kids and newbies. Instead of wires or solder, LightUp uses magnets to connect the modules together. It turns out that there’s already a very similar product out on the market. It’s called littleBits, and it already has a growing number of modules and a healthy community.

Like LightUp, littleBits uses color-coded modules that easily snap together using magnets. Each module also has screen-printed labels that identify its parts. Unlike LightUp, littleBits uses the polarity of magnets to prevent you from sticking a module to another module the wrong way.

The modules are separated into four types: power, input, output and wire. The first three are self-explanatory, while the wire module is used to extend or branch out your circuit. Each type has multiple variants. For instance, there’s a USB and a coin battery power module, a button and a light sensor input module, an LED and a DC motor output module and more.

Head to littleBits’ online shop to order a kit. The base kit costs $99 (USD) and comes with 10 modules. You can also buy more modules separately.

Check out the littleBits website and their YouTube channel to see what customers have built with the kits.

[via Make:]

You can convey a lot of things through touch. You can give a sympathetic hug, a joyous high-five or an angry punch. But Disney Research Pittsburgh came up with an interactive installation that can transmit sound using the human body. The sound will then be heard when a carrier touches someone’s ears. This means you can transmit a verbal message through touch.

The researchers call their invention Ishin-denshin, after a Japanese idiom that describes “unspoken mutual understanding.” Ishin-denshin consists of a microphone connected to a computer’s sound card. There’s also a thin piece of wire connected to the microphone’s cable and wrapped around its metallic casing. The microphone is set to start recording when it receives sound with an amplitude above a preset threshold, presumably so it won’t record ambient noise.  The recorded loop is sent to the computer, which converts the sound into a high voltage but low current electric signal and sends it to the thin piece of wire. The signal is then transferred to the person holding the mic, who can then pass it on to someone else via touch. The signal can be passed to multiple people before it’s directed to someone’s ear.

I wonder if it’s possible to make a visual version of the Ishin-denshin.

[via Disney Research & New Scientist via NOTCOT]

This airplane is guaranteed to crash within a half hour or less, or your money back. Here’s the story. Darren Lewis and Phil Reilly built this awesome and surprisingly functional remote-controlled airplane out of an old Dominos Pizza box.

Well, a pizza box, an RC controller and $35 worth of parts. It even has an actuated rudder and ailerons. Pay attention Dominos. This is how I want my pizza delivered next time. It flies surprisingly well. It is actually a thing of beauty. But maybe that’s because I’m really hungry right now.

It proves that pizza box technology should be applied to aviation right away. Maybe it could shoot some breadstick missiles.

[via Neatorama]

Rarely do you see dragons this adorable. This little guy looks like he just hatched out of an egg and got a part on Game of Thrones. Yeah, he has an agent already. That’s how cool he is.

This awesome hand-crafted dragon is made from ball joints. That’s what gives his armor such a neat look. It is always what allows him to curl up into a little ball come sleepy time.

You know you want one. So do I. Well, if you do, you can check out the creator’s site here for 7000 to 10000 rubles (~$200 to $300 USD). Of course, you’ll have to speak Russian if you want one. It looks like he has several color versions. The black one is the cutest. Who knew that ball joints would make such a neat dragon?

[via Obvious Winner]

Have you ever wanted ride shotgun in a robotic car as it drives around your neighborhood? Sure, autonomous cars are still very expensive, but how about miniature version? I bet you hadn’t though of that, but a couple of engineers came up with this scaled-down version of Google’s driverless car.

The RoboTech SuperCar is a toy car kit, powered by an Arduino controller. It has RGB LED headlights and tail lights, an ultrasonic sensor, and a 24-pin RC bus that can interface with its microcontroller. The car can operate in several modes, including full RC, computer-assisted RC, or fully-autonomous driving.

The benefit is that it’s low cost compared to a full-size autonomous car, and I’m sure that you can have your own robotic invasion fleet ready soon. It’s definitely something quite ingenious to have around if you want to spy on your neighbors.

[via MAKE]