Hasta La Gadget!

Have you played Minecraft so much that sometimes you see the world in voxels? This isn’t one of those times. The blocks below are real and even react to being hit by a pickaxe, thanks to the clever work of creative technologist Ben Purdy.

Purdy installed piezoelectric sensors on the cardboard boxes to detect force, i.e. when the boxes are hit. An Arduino microcontroller sends input from the sensors to a computer, which then uses a program written by Purdy to produce the appropriate animation. Finally, the animation is beamed to the paper-covered boxes via two projectors.

You can check out a cleaner video of the Minecraft block on Purdy’s website. I wonder if its possible to use this tech to create an interactive Punch Out! game this way.

[via Kotaku]

We’ve featured LEGO mad scientist akiyuki and his Great Ball Contraption before, but the updated version of his machine is too awesome not too share. The machine is about 101 feet long and shuffles 500 balls around. It took akiyuki a total of 600 hours to finish this machine.

Nope, that’s just a third of the whole thing. You’ll have to watch the video below to see all of its parts:

The basketball area is amazing and hilarious. The arms are so accurate, but I can’t help imagining them in a real factory, shooting packages through a hoop.

[via NOTCOT]

As far as competitive videogames go, you can’t get any simpler than Pong. But times have changed, and so have our tastes and need for mayhem. We can’t just have birds, they need to be angry birds. So if Pong is to be played by today’s gamers – bored adults and foul-mouthed adolescents alike – it can’t just have two paddles and a ball. There needs to be chaos.

Invented by Stacy Dudley and Brad Slattery, the RetroBall is a bat-and-ball game system – let’s just call a Pong a Pong and call it Pong. It has a 32×32 pixel LED screen, an acrylic enclosure and 1-bit sound effects. It’s clearly more powerful than the Wii U. The RetroBall has four paddle controllers so you can engage in four-player Pong deathmatches, and you can even increase the number of balls onscreen to five. It’s actually kind of reminiscent of Atari’s arcade classic Warlords.

But don’t let the cutting edge graphics and complicated gameplay fool you: you can’t just button mash your way to victory here like in your other modern games, primarily because there’s no button to mash, but also because skilled RetroBall players – probably named Stacy and Brad – are aware that you can change the spin and speed of a ball depending on how you hit it.

Pledge at least $149 (USD) on Kickstarter to reserve a RetroBall game system. Launch titles include 2-player Pong with 1 ball, 3-player Pong with 1 ball, 4-player Pong with 1 ball, 2-player Pong with 2 balls…

[via Ubergizmo]

If you’re a fan of Star Trek, you’ll undoubtedly recognize this Klingon weapon. The weapon is called a Bat’leth and is a two-handed bladed weapon the Klingon’s use to cleave enemies in twain. This miniaturized version is sharp and designed to rip your mail open.

Nothing says “I’m a Trekkie” like a tiny little Klingon weapon sitting on your desk. ThinkGeek describes the device is an incredibly sharp Bat’Leth letter opener and it isn’t a toy. The device is made of durable stainless steel and has a cast resin display stand that holds it.

The letter opener is eight-inches long and the opener and the base together weigh 8 ounces. The mini-weapon is in stock right now for $24.99(USD) and will have you shouting will Ni’tokor bak’to! as you slice open your cable bill.

Here’s a couple of things you can do when you’re angry: grab your Damnit Doll, whip out your Calligraphuck Cards, or reach for your Profanity Generator. The first two options delay your expression of anger, while the last just helps you come up with words to describe it.

I’m not saying you should take the pad and yell out insults to the person who offended you. Rather, you might find that it actually helps dissipate your anger by showing you a neat selection of often humorous curses like ‘crap wad’, ‘fart monkey’, and ‘ass waffle.’ Yes, I said ‘ass waffle.’ With syrup.

The Profanity Generator is available online from Fred Flare for $10.95(USD).

[via Instash]