Whether you need one for cosplay of you just want really large fingers, Ivan Owen can give you a hand. Literally. Owen runs ChainCrafts, an Etsy store that specializes in armor, costumes and jewelry. His most intriguing product is the mechanical hand that’s twice the size of a human hand.
What’s awesome about the hand is that it has cables that let the wearer control each finger with his own fingers, like so:
Here’s another version of the mechanical hand. Owen said this one was going to be used in a werewolf costume:
Both of the hands I showed here have already been sold, but you can contact Owen via his Etsy shop and order a new one for around $230(USD) if you want. Owen is also hard at work co-developing a more practical version of his mechanical hand: prosthetic fingers.
A few months back, robot/toy designer Jaimie Mantzel showed off an early prototype of a six-legged robot toy that looked pretty damned awesome. He announced at the time that he was working on it so a production version could eventually be made, and now we can see the final build in action!
The first of the six-legged robots in the new Combat Creatures line-up is dubbed Attacknid (despite not having eight legs like a spider, but I don’t care.) The final version of the robot measures 10 inches-tall, and can fire foam projectiles up to 30 feet from its 360° rotating head. You can choose from three different weapons, including foam “Dissector Discs” (included), or upgrade with “Snyper Darts” or “Destroyer Spheres.” Despite not seeing pics of them yet, those all sound awesome to me.
Check out Jaimie showing some of the first Attacknids off the assembly line in the video clip below…
Of course, the entire thing can be controlled remotely, and the 2.4GHz wireless communication supports up to FORTY robots in simultaneous battle! Oh, and if you hit your opponents armor directly it “explodes” off of its legs – and three direct hits shuts down the other ‘bot cold. And from the looks of the video clip, you can swap out colored skins on your ‘bot too.
Oh, and its designer is encouraging hacks and mods, as is proven by this freakishly awesome, illuminated Attacknid somebody already put together:
The Attacknid Combat Creature is available for pre-order now for £69.99 (~$112 USD) for delivery in the U.S. and the UK, though only the UK will get their orders in 2012. That price includes the Attacknid robot in black, a red skin set, the remote control, Disector weapon, 20 foam Dissector discs, and various other bits and bobs. No word yet on how much the add-on weapons and skins will sell for.
Is there any better way to carry around your clothes than by using an astromech droid? Let a droid carry all of your stuff the next time you go on vacation with this awesome R2-D2 suitcase.
It’s probably not an officially licensed piece of Star Wars merchandise since it’s simply called a “Robot Trolley,” but who cares? It features four polycarbonate wheels so it should be quiet as it is rolling along and if you really want to get into the whole theme, you can always dress up as C-3PO when going through airport security with this thing.
Sure, it’s not exactly shaped like our beloved droid friend, but it’s close enough. Just pretend that R2 was in an accident with a trash compactor.
The R2-D2 suitcase Robot Trolley is available from Salvador Bachiller for €76 (~$96 USD).
A labor of love 7 years in the making, this heavily customized, Nintendo-themed variant of Risk was made by – drum roll please – redditor NintendoRisk. Instead of our countries and continents, the territories are places from various classic Nintendo games, including the Kanto region, Hyrule, Eagleland, Dinosaur Island and more. It also has aerial territories such as Zebes and the Great Fox ship.
The art looks really good, not just the stuff on the board, but on the cards – there are 100 Hero and 42 Territory cards – as well. NintendoRisk said that all of the artwork is in high resolution. The board for example is about 20,000 pixels wide and its digital copy is about 700MB.
My only suggestion would be to add a border graphic of some sort on the board. I’m sure NintendoRisk can fill it up with Nintendo’s vast cache of characters and icons.
Do you still have Fisher Price’s toy record player from the 70s? Instructables member Fred27 figured out a way to play pretty much any tune you want on the toy, thanks to a bit of code and the wonders of 3D printing.
Fred27 initially printed his first batch of Fisher Price records using a CNC machine, but because his first Instructable became quite popular, he decided to write a second one that involves 3D printing. As Fred27 said, 3D printers are cheaper than CNC machines, and you can even outsource the printing for a relatively cheap price.
Here’s one of Fred27′s custom records, a short copy of the Star Wars theme. This particular record was made via CNC, but the 3D printed records should work exactly the same.
Head to Instructables to figure out how you can have print your own Fisher Price record. You can also buy Fred27′s records on Shapeways. As for the record player, you can find some on eBay and Amazon. I wonder if it’s also possible to scan and make .STL files out of vinyl records. That could be a great way of preserving them.
Apparently Trekkies love Monopoly so much that USAopoly has released not one, but two Star Trek-themed Monopoly sets. Unlike the first one, this particular set will let you play with your Klingon friends. Yeah, I know, I’ve yet to find evidence that this “friend” creature exists either.
As you might have guessed, the most unique thing about this set is that all of the English instructions also have Klingon translations. Aside from that, almost all the other names and aspects of the game have also been Klingonized. Instead of money, players use “Klingon Forces” as currency. The standard tokens have been replaced with the captain’s chair, klingon gavel, disruptor, bat’leth, K’k tahg and a bird of prey. The set also includes a small replica of the Klingon Chancellor’s Cane.
Sadly, all of this fan service only makes this set’s weak point more apparent. Look at the board in the gallery below and you’ll see that the four corners are still from the standard edition, albeit with Klingon translations. Kinda jarring once you notice them.
Hackable toys are nothing new, but there’s something appealing about pulling a ‘bot out of your pocket and remote-controlling it from your smartphone. I’m sure that some of the flying mini drones would also fit the bill, but the BERO (Be The Robot) looks pretty cool too.
The BERO ‘bot is a 4″ tall robot that can be controlled via your smartphone, to which it will pair using Bluetooth. The app that will control the ‘bot will be open-source, so you will probably end up being able to do all sorts of crazy things with your diminutive robot. It comes with a multi-motor, microchip, on-board flash memory, speakers, and an SD card slot. There’s a higher end model that has some pretty flashy designs and will be able to perform more movements, as well as having LED lights that can light up to the beat of music.
The BERO ‘bot was launched on Kickstarter, and at the time of writing, it had amassed a total of $18,000 out of a goal of $38,900 with 30 days of funding left. It will almost certainly be made if it stays on its current pace. You’ll have to pledge $79 for the BERO Bluetooth edition, but the more sophisticated versions range from $109 to $189, depending on the design.
R/C toys are fun. Whether it’s driving, flying or navigating the the waterways, it’s all good. It’s even cooler if you are capable of customizing your R/C craft. R/C hobbyist Chris Allen knows a thing or two about that, having built this awesome 70MM EDF JET powered Batwing from scratch.
It not only looks awesome, it also really flies and flies fast too while flipping around in the air. Chris has been building and designing R/C planes for the past 10 years and right now he is into scratch-building anything to do with Batman. My kind of builder.
Now he just needs to build a Joker plane and take the fight to the skies for the ultimate flying duel. Make sure you watch the videos. This thing is amazing in flight. I’m sure would have your Batman action figure pulling massive Gs in the cockpit.
We’ve seen a few vehicles made out of LEGO before, but those were either tiny, non-functioning or had non-LEGO parts. Which is why Eric Steenstra’s go-kart trumps them all. It’s life-sized, it runs, it can carry a driver and most of all it’s made from nothing but LEGO products.
See for yourself:
It’s obviously a work in progress – note the lack of steering – but even if it never goes faster than that I still think Steenstra deserves all the slowclap.gifs on the Internet. Amazing.
It takes a serious Batman fan to build a replica of any of the Dark Knight’s vehicles. It is even more impressive when they build them from junk as is the case with this Batpod motorcycle. It not only looks amazing, but this is a fully functional hand-built Dark Knight BatPod. It was made from scrap metal parts by Vietnam’s Tùng Lâm. It looks like it cost him a fortune to build, but believe it or not, it cost just $480(USD). That’s a lot less than Bruce Wayne paid for his (or the $100,000 for this replica.)
The video shows Tùng tearing up the streets on this cool vehicle and just generally feeling good and being his own superhero. You can see more pics from the build at the link below.
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