Hasta La Gadget!

If you are worried about the inevitable zombie invasion – and who isn’t – you might want to check out this Chevy Silverado on display at the State Fair of Texas. This ‘Black Ops Concept’ is apocalypse ready. Chevy design manager Dave Ross calls it “a survival kit on four wheels.”

The Black Ops features a raised suspension and body armor to help it traverse the toughest terrain that the post-apocalyptic wasteland has to offer. In the bed is a zombie-proof Truck Vault storage unit. Inside of this is a solar power pack, gas masks, gloves, a military first aid kit, a folding shovel, and a rope. On top of the storage locker are a generator, fuel can, and food and water rations.

It has everything you need to survive hordes of zombies and keep going. I hope it becomes a reality before the undead show up.

[via Geekologie]

I’m sure you’ve bought fruit or had some at home when it was still wrapped snugly in the box in its foam rubber packaging. I remember my cousins and I fighting over who got the stretchy, accordion-like stuff whenever an adult would grab an apple or pear from the box, because it was a toy to us, not trash.

Getting inspiration from this same packaging is Japanese designer Keisuke Fujiwara.

I’m sure his chair’s designs look more than familiar to you, because they resemble that stretchy fruit packaging I was just talking about. The structure, the way the fibers cross and intersect with one another, and the shape of the chair screams “I was inspired by the foam rubber packaging that protected your fruit while it was in transit!”

Apparently, they also feel like the rubbery packaging too, because the chairs are described as being “pillowy soft” and “moldable.” They’ll also “wrap around” anyone who sits in them, making for a very comfortable piece of furniture.

[via PSFK via TAXI]

When "invention machine" Quirky launched in 2009, it made a name for itself hocking plastic utensils and cord organizers—designed by you, for you. But over the past year, it’s made a play to move into turning your home into a Jetsons-worthy utopia. And it’s got the means—and brains—to do it.

Read more…

Sometimes I see the kinds of toys being sold in stores today and I worry. Baby dolls with a diapered monkey pet, pole dancer dolls (apparently, these exist), shopping spree board games… Don’t get me wrong, these toys are probably fun and your kid will probably love them.

But I’d love to see more toys with better educational values on the shelves, because that way, they have tons of fun and actually learn something – like with the Robot Turtles board game.

Thought up by Dan Shapiro, Robot Turtles is a board game that teaches your kids the basic language of programming. The premise of the game is simple: the kids get a stack of action cards, while an adult reads the instructions and moves the turtle for the on the board. When they want to move the turtle in a certain way, they have to pick a card and lay it on the table.

Don’t you wish you played something like this growing up before you enrolled at, say, MIT or the University of Management and Technology, to take up some IT course so that basic programming would’ve been at least one of your first languages? Yeah, I bet you do.

Dan sums the entire game up pretty nicely: “The little programmers put instruction cards down, driving the turtles through the maze, but the grownup is the computer, executing commands on the board.  At its heart, Robot Turtles is a game about bossing around adults. Just like programming is about bossing around computers.”

A lot of people think Robot Turtles is a good idea, because it raised over $630,000 on Kickstarter, which is many times over Dan’s $25,000 project goal. If you didn’t have a chance to make a pledge to get the game, then you can join the mailing list on the Robot Turtles website to find out when it becomes available again.

Funny thing is, this isn’t the first time turtles have been used to help kids learn how to program…

[via Dvice]

Thousands of paper windmills seem to spin effortlessly in The Wind Portal, an installation by Lebanese artist Najla El Zein at London’s V&A Museum this month. However, the production process wasn’t exactly effortless. In fact, extreme accuracy was required to build this massive wall of wind, because it relies on air—and air is volatile.

Read more…