Do you love drumming your fingers on your car’s steering wheel while you drive? If Gregor “G-Man” Hanuschak has his way, soon you can actually make drum sounds when you tap on your steering wheel. G-Man invented Smack Attack, a steering wheel cover with 8 touch sensitive sensors.
The Smack Attack needs to be connected to an iOS device to work. From its mobile app you can set what samples will be triggered for each sensor. You can download more samples as they become available from the Smack Attack website or you can load your own sounds. You can play along with music, play solo or – get this – play together with other Smack Attack users.
While its maker suggests that using the Smack Attack could help you from falling asleep at the wheel, it could also just distract you from the task at hand – driving.
Ready to go on tour? Pledge at least $149 (USD) on Kickstarter and you’ll qualify for one of the first Smack Attack units if it gets funded.
LEGO blocks are fun to play with for sure, but they’re definitely not the kind of thing you want kids putting in their mouth and chomping on. For block-builders who like to chew on stuff, better go with Candy Blocks instead.
These sugary building blocks have a similar shape to LEGO bricks, but are completely edible. And yes, they can be stacked and interlocked to form structures. Though keep in mind they’re a bit more fragile and crumbly than real LEGO bricks. They come in a variety of fruity flavors to match their colors, and sort of remind me of another favorite candy/toy combo – PEZ.
You can find Candy Blocks over on Amazon in packages ranging from 1 to 5.5 pounds, with prices between about $7 and $29(USD). I’m concerned that I’d end up eating half of my construction project before I could finish it.
While twist ties can come in handy for wrapping up cables or closing plastic bags, they’re pretty boring little things. But where you may see something of utility, one artist sees a medium for making wondrous sculptures.
In fact, artist Shota Katsube made not just one or two little action figures out of colored twist ties – he built an entire army out of them. All told, there are 300 of the little sculptures, each with unique weapons and stances. They measure from about 3 to 5 centimeters (~1.18″ to 1.96″) in height. They were made without any other structure besides the twist ties themselves, and can stand on their own.
Can’t afford the sweet Kuratas mech? Maybe you can pass on your dream of riding a robot to your kid. Japanese company Sakakibara Kikai recently released a video showing an updated version of its Kid’s Walker machine. It looks a lot more toy-like now, but it’s also more menacing because it has a gigantic drill on its left limb, in case Junior wants to play some Bioshock IRL.
Check out a Newtype lucky kid testing the Kid’s Walker NT in the video below:
I’m not sure if the Kid’s Walker NT is already for sale, but if the price of the previous model is any indication you’ll need tens of thousands of dollars to earn the title of world’s best parent.
A company called Inkwell Ideas has come up with dice that can help budding dungeon masters or spice up the adventures of long-time parties. Aside from being numbered, each face on a DungeonMorphs die contains a piece of a map. Roll the five dice and voila, you get a randomized area.
Note that each face on all five dice is unique, meaning you have 7,776 combinations with just that one set. Get more sets and you get a bigger and more varied dungeon.
ThinkGeek is selling the Adventurer Set of DungeonMorphs Dice for $20 (USD), but there are two additional sets available on Inkwell Ideas’ website.
Cuusoo member Jazlecraz wants LEGO to make a set based on the happiest post-apocalyptic cartoon ever made: Adventure Time. The set consists of two versions of the Tree Fort, home to lead characters Jake the Dog and Finn the Human Minifigure.
The larger version of the Tree Fort is made of 1,300 pieces and is hollow, meaning you can look inside and play with the different rooms and furniture. It also comes with Finn and Jake minifigs. Then there’s the Micro Tree Fort, which is just made of 400 pieces but is still recognizable. It also comes with Finn and Jake microfigures.
Jazlecraz is also thinking of additional characters to include in the set – you can see the Ice King’s already representing the sort of bad guys of Ooo. Wield your mouse cursor sword and vote for the concept on Cuusoo.
I can always tell when my daughter is an art making mood. I don’t have to see her artwork to know she’s feeling artsy, I can look at her hands and tell when she’s been in the marker box. She always ends up with pink and orange swirls on her fingers and on the side of her hand. We also end up with Crayola wrappers everywhere and pieces of paper thrown all around. She typically makes a big mess but ends up with beautiful artwork.
If your kid likes to make a lot of artwork, but isn’t exactly neat about it you might want to check out a new product from Griffin called the Crayola Light Marker for iPad.
The device itself looks like your typical Crayola marker, only it has a glowing light on one end and works in conjunction with an application that runs on the iPad. Instead of drawing directly on the screen of your iPad, you draw in the air with the Light Marker. It uses the iPad’s front-facing camera to track the position of the marker. It also comes with a stand to hold the iPad in place at just the proper angle for drawing.
The app offers several different things the kids can do including a free draw where they can draw on the screen just like they would on a piece of paper with any color marker they want. The app also includes coloring pages, dot-to-dot pictures, and hide and seek pages to play with. The app is available on the app store at no cost and the Crayola Light Marker itself is available right now for $29.99(USD).
Revoltech recently released this 25th Anniversary action figure of Naked Snake aka Big Boss from Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker. It comes with a lot of props, but the plainest of its props is also the best one: a cardboard box.
The Snake stealth item of choice is printed with “1987-2012″, which of course indicates the Metal Gear franchise’s first 25 years. Aside from the box, Big Boss has a lot of other toys, including an assault rifle, a handgun, a stun gun as well as “Zzzz” and “!” signs. Big Boss is also highly poseable – even his left eye is moveable – but his face is too cartoony for my taste. At least you can hide him in his box.
You can see lots of silly shots of the action figure on Amiami’s blog. It seems to be already sold out in toy stores, but you can still find a few units sneaking about on eBay. Just be prepared to pay significantly more than its original price.
I first saw the Sphero robotic ball about 2 years ago at CES, but I never really got a chance to play with one hands-on until now. When I first saw it in action, all I wanted to say was “Do not taunt Happy Fun Ball.” This little orb is packed with cool technology that lets you use it as a remote-control vehicle, a game controller, and tech toy/plaything.
Made by Orbotix, the Sphero itself is a durable polycarbonate-shelled orb which fits nicely in the palm of your hand. This is no accident, since this makes it work perfectly as a controller or plaything itself when it’s not rolling around on the floor. Inside of the ball are its brains, wireless circuit, motion sensors, motors, a small rechargeable battery and multicolor LEDs.
The spherical robot is capable of traversing a variety of surfaces, including hardwood floors, tile, grass, concrete and low-pile carpet (it has a hard time on thicker carpets). It’s even waterproof, so you can drive it around in the bathtub or in a puddle. To juice up the Sphero, simply set it in its inductive charging cradle, and it’ll go for up to an hour on a single charge.
You control the Sphero using either iOS or Android apps, which range from the main Sphero R/C controller app to games, interactive toys, augmented reality and macro programming apps. The library of Sphero apps continues to grow too, since there’s a full Sphero API and SDK available for developers to make their own applications. Many of the current apps are free, while the few that cost money sell for $1.99 or less.
Playing with Sphero is a blast, and it’s stupid-simple to use. Simply pair it with your Bluetooth device, load up an app of your choice, orient the Sphero properly and start playing. It’ll operate at distances up to about 50 feet from your device. Setting the Sphero’s orientation is simple. Just place the ball on the ground and use two fingers to maneuver its secondary blue “tail” LED to point towards you. If you should pick up and move the Sphero, you can do this again in a jiffy.
The main Sphero app is a great place to start, as it lets you drive the Sphero and play with its colors with ease. You can choose from a touch-based or motion-based control scheme, as well as several pre-set macros for things like circles, Figure 8′s and a flashing light show.
The Sphero app can also capture stills or video of your escapades and save them to your device.
And if you log into the Sphero ecosystem, you can record fun achievements, track stats and compete with others for Sphero supremacy.
I tried out just about every Sphero app I could find on the iTunes App Store, and here are my personal favorites: 1) ColorGrab – a frustrating, but fun multiplayer game in which players must quickly pick up the Sphero when its flashing in a specified color; 2) Draw & Drive – which lets you simply draw a path for your Sphero to follow; 3) Etch-o-Matic – this turns your Sphero into the controller for an Etch-a-Sketch inspired drawing pad; and 4) Sharky – an augmented reality app which turns your Sphero into a funny looking beaver that you flick virtual cupcakes at. It’s completely silly, but a fun tech demo.
The hacker in me got the most joy out of the MacroLab app, which lets you create complex programming sequences for the Sphero, adjusting all of its available parameters. These include movement, rotation, light color, speed, and basic programming constructs like delays and loops. The only thing I wish is that you could take your saved macros and load them into the main Sphero application for playback. Apparently, the Android version can even control multiple Spheros at the same time.
If you and your friends have more than one Sphero, they can be independently controlled for races, running obstacle courses, or even for playing Sphero miniature golf (which can also be played solo).
All in all, I really have had a good time playing with the Sphero, and I can only imagine that kids and geeks of all ages would get a kick out of having one. It’s also great for tormenting your pets. The fact that it’s programmable and has a software development community means that even if you get bored with it for a little while, there will be more apps coming down the pike to give it new life. And if you’re a real tinkerer, you can even make your own apps.
Disclosure: Orbotix provided the Sphero for review in this article. However, all reviews are the unbiased views of our editorial staff, and we will only recommend products or services we have used personally, and believe will be good for our readers.
We talk about lots of cool LEGO construction projects around here. One of the more interesting, and large LEGO projects was the gigantic 105 foot tall LEGO tower we covered about a year ago. That tower set a world record for the tallest LEGO construct ever built. Now, a group of architects and architecture students have set a new world record using another childhood building medium – the Lincoln Log.
This particular world record was set for creating the tallest Lincoln Log Tower ever constructed. The Lincoln log structure was modeled after the Nebraska State Capital building and was 12-feet, 4-inches-tall. The structure also used more pieces than any other Lincoln Log structure on record – 10,036 to be exact. The previous record holder stood 10-feet, 11-inches-tall and used only 2,995 Lincoln Logs.
The record-breaking tower was constructed by architectural students from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln and DLR Group architects. The entire construction project took the team a little over six hours to complete.
While it’s not nearly as tall as the giant LEGO structure, it’s still quite impressive as Lincoln Logs don’t have the structural locking mechanism that LEGO does, and they also weigh more.
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