Hasta La Gadget!

If Thor’s Mjolnir hammer wasn’t bad enough on its own, the heavyweight hammer is also capable of summoning lightning from the heavens. Caleb over at Hack A Day thought about this and decided he needed his own electrified Thor’s hammer.

Instead of standing in the middle of a field during a lightning storm, Caleb decided to go with something a bit safer. With the help of builder Staci Elaan, Caleb’s Mjolnir is outfitted with a working, battery-powered Tesla coil. Despite outputting 80,000 volts, the Tesla coil is actually quite safe – just zapping subjects with a tiny, tickly sensation, and not the full force of Thor’s mighty hammer. And since it’s a Tesla coil, it can even light up fluorescent bulbs placed near it.

That was fun, though I do wish the lightning bolts it emits would be a bit bigger. I guess you’d need a larger, plug-in Tesla coil – and Thor would probably have to wear a Faraday suit.

Check out more details on the build over on Hack A Day.

Everybody has one: a toy from their childhood that will always have a special significance in their lives. For John Bennett, it was Ted, a stuffed teddy bear that came to life after John wished for it one Christmas night.

If you saw the movie, then you saw firsthand how awesome having a stuffed teddy bear for a best friend is. Not so awesome for your girlfriend at the outset, but at least you’ll know that everything will work out somehow at the very end.

Now on to the good news: if you’ve never had a Ted before in your life (or lost it after your mom threw it out when you went off to college), then you can get one again thanks to ThinkGeek.

They’re selling a miniature stuffed Ted teddy bear that utters a few choice vulgar phrases with every squeeze. It’s smaller than the Ted featured in the movie, but at least the voice is as real as it gets, as it’s provided by the one and only Seth MacFarlane. And despite the bleeps you hear in the video below, rest assured that the actual teddy bear is uncensored.

The Ted R-Rated Talking Plush is available from ThinkGeek for $14.99(USD).

Artist TJ Wilferd aka Unicron9 loves making custom action figures. Last year he boldly went and took Star Trek where the franchise hasn’t gone before – to the world of Transformers. He made an action figure that he calls Autobot E, a robot whose vehicle mode is the Starship Enterprise.

*cue transforming sound effect*

To take his creation to the next level, Wilferd even wrote a brief origin story for Autobot E. Capt. Picard and his crew were taking out the remnants of the Borg when they pick up a strange metal relic from one of the Borg’s ships. The relic then proceeds to take over the Enterprise and upgrades the ship. Eventually it directs the crew to Cybertron, which was being attacked by the Borg. A beatdown ensues and the adult Power Rangers win the day. I would love to see an animated short of that.

Warp to Wilfer’s deviantART page for more images (and the full story) of Autobot E.

[via io9]

You’ve been dutifully leveling up at school. You’ve lost count how many times you’ve run the Part-time Job and Household Chore side quests. You deserve a reward. But rewards are a bit more special if they’re unidentified items right? That’s the concept behind LootCrate. For about $20 per month, you’ll get a goodie box containing 6 to 8 geeky items, from t-shirts to gadgets.

Aside from the overall geeky theme, the LootCrate elves also pick a theme every month. For instance, the April LootCrate box is called “Token” and contains merchandise of arcade classics like Street Fighter and Space Invaders. Each month, the company also randomly awards one subscriber with a Mega Crate, a rare drop that contains goodies worth $250 (USD).

Sign up for LootCrate on its website. Subscriptions start at about $20 (USD) per month and can be canceled anytime.

[via Fab]

Captains log: “I’m currently in sick bay with another nasty paper cut. Bones says I’ll live, but… I… have… my… doubts…” If you’re a Star Trek fan who’s into papercraft, you will definitely want the new DIY Paper USS Enterprise 1701 over at ThinkGeek. This is exactly what it sounds like, a  papercraft kit that allows you to build your own version of the original Starship Enterprise.

The kit even includes electronics to add a flashing lights and to play the theme from the original series. Along with the paper model of the 1701 Enterprise is a book that chronicles the different versions of the enterprise in the Star Trek universe. The kit has 10 different sheets of punch out paper and step-by-step instructions to assemble the paper spaceship.

When the project is done, your paper Enterprise will be nearly a foot long. It appears that the only thing you need to add is some glue and your time.

Warp on over to ThinkGeek to grab your DIY Paper USS Enterprise Kit for $19.99(USD).