Hasta La Gadget!

Flickr member/Artist/Legologist Carl Merriam loves making functional sculptures out of his favorite medium. Take this microscope for instance. It’s not high tech enough for CSI: Legoland, but it does have a magnifying glass inside and working focus knobs.

Merriam thought of making a microscope when he realized that his X-Pod looked like a Petri dish.

He didn’t provide a detailed breakdown or how-to, but he did say, “I used a planetary gear system to allow both coarse and fine adjustment of the objective “lens”. A little more tinkering and I connected the focus to a magnifying glass and fiber optic light in the eyepiece, so adjusting the focus knobs would actually bring the writing on a LEGO stud in and out of focus.”

I guess this is an Imperial microscope. Check out Merriam’s Flickr page or his blog for more of his builds. And yes, someone’s already built a working LEGO telescope.

[via Doobybrain]

We’ve yet to preserve our likenesses in holograms, but a German studio called Twinkind has the next best thing: a highly detailed 3D printed figurine of yourself. Imagine playing a tabletop RPG as yourself! With your dog as your sidekick!

Twinkind uses a multi-camera scanner that takes lots of images from all angles. Apparently this process only takes a split-second. Then they process the images from the scanner and turn it into a 3D model, which will then be used to print figurines in full color. After 2 to 5 weeks, you’ll get the Mini-Me to your Dr. Evil. Twinkind will keep a digital file of your shot so you can order more figurines in the future.

Unfortunately, Twinkind isn’t for everyone. First of all, it’s very expensive: the smallest figurine is about 6″ tall and costs about $290 (USD), while the most expensive one is about $1,680 and is about 14″tall. Second, before you become a collectible that only your family will want to collect, you have to visit Twinkind’s shop in Hamburg, Germany to be scanned. Do you love yourself that much?

[via Laughing Squid]

I always find Star Trek’s utopia future pretty dumb. The human race is never going to be perfect and live in harmony. Because… This thing. This gun from the future is all kinds of bad-ass. It looks like Smith and Wesson made love to TRON and left this bright glowing and deadly baby on our doorstep.

This is a fully-functioning coilgun that launches metal bolts with the power of electricity. The coilgun technology you see here was all jammed inside and around a G36 airsoft gun.

It has a night vision infrared camera and viewfinder, lasers, and a magazine that holds batteries instead of bullets. And if you saw those three lasers at the end of the rifles barrels pointing your way, you’d better duck.

The future’s so bright… I gotta wear Kevlar.

[via Obvious Winner]

If you want a realistic and creepy spider robot and have a spare $1,350(USD) Robugtix will be happy to sell you this lifelike robotic spider called the T8. Put this in your home and it will likely scare all of the real spiders you have creeping around in your home. They will be lining up to leave your abode.

The robot has a 3D printed outer shell and limbs. Inside it boasts a total of 26 servo motors and that is where it gets its realistic movement.. That and a special inverse kinematic software algorithm you run on a computer to drive it. I’m torn. I want to kill it with fire. But I also want to buy it! Decisions, decisions.

The T8 Spiderbot will be available this September. It’s a good thing it has a single large eye, otherwise you might mistake it for a real spider.

For those of you without such deep pockets, there’s another option in the decidedly less realistic looking, but nonetheless just as creepy-walking Iitsii hexapod, which will ship late August for $250.

[via Engadget]

Your teenage child is too big – and cool – for the Kid’s Walker, but you don’t trust her with the Kuratas mech just yet. How are you going to retain your title of World’s Greatest Parent? Simple. With Sagawa Electronics’ Powered Jacket MK3 walking exoskeleton.

There’s only one problem: like the Kuratas, the Powered Jacket is either a promotional tool or an insanely expensive commercial product.

Allegedly, the exoskeleton is over 7ft. tall and weighs a mere 55lb. as it is primarily made of carbon fiber and aluminum. Its arms are controlled simply by moving the corresponding lever, while its legs are strapped to the wearer’s own legs. Apparently its fingers can also be controlled precisely. It also has a transparent canopy to protect the wearer against pedophiles. Now watch its demo video:

That was the best video I’ve in seen my entire life. Science fiction, comedy, drama and horror all in one. You can doubt the extent of Sagawa Electronics’ contribution to robotics, but its contribution to humor is the stuff of legends. As claimed in the video, Sagawa Electronics will supposedly make only five Powered Jacket MK3 units for the foreseeable future, with each one priced at ¥12,500,000 (~$124,000 USD). If that’s how much is needed for them to make another video, then folks I’m telling you that’s a freakin’ bargain.

[via Sagawa Electronics via Laughing Squid]