Hasta La Gadget!

What happens when you gut a pumpkin and replace its insides with heat-shrink tubing, solder, 128 LEDs, eight AA batteries, an Arduino board and clever programming? You get what self-proclaimed tinkerer Nathan Pryor calls “Pumpktris.” Over the years we’ve seen the classic puzzle game Tetris ported to some amazing things, but a piece of fruit? Just in time for Halloween, this high-tech spin on the jack-o’-lantern features a fully playable Tetris game controlled from the pumpkin’s joystick stem. Whether you’re a hardcore do-it-yourselfer, or a diehard Tetris fan hoping to top the system’s high score (9,800 points), you can build your very own Pumpktris. Of course, its creator estimates it’ll take around 12 hours or longer to build the custom LED matrix and joystem and carve up the gourd of your choice. If you’re up to the challenge, you can find a complete walkthrough of the project at the source link below. However, if you’d just like to see this quasi-organic gaming rig in action, check out the groovy video after the break.

Continue reading Holy Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Tetris ported to a jack-o’-lantern (video)

Filed under: Misc, Gaming

Holy Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown! Tetris ported to a jack-o’-lantern (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Tue, 30 Oct 2012 18:04:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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There’s nothing more obnoxious than one of those guys with a pair of camouflage party pants and a hat that you can sip beer out of. But leave it to the geeks of the world to make drinking beer from a helmet just a little cooler.

Instructables contributor DucttapeNinja decided that the tacky sportsfan beer helmet needed a proper LARP-ing, and created this beer-sipping helmet thats’ based on Gimli’s helmet from the Lord of the Rings movies.

I can honestly say this is the first time I’ve seen armor that provides both head protection and ready access to alcohol – which is always a good thing to have around should you find yourself on the losing end of an axe fight.

DucttapeNinja thinks his helmet design could easily be applied to any helmet you’d like, so you could go for anything from a Beerba Fett, to a Sh*tfaced Spartan to a Daft Drunk with the proper helmet, and DtN’s Instructables beer helmet tutorial in hand.

[via DressedLikeMachines via Design You Trust]

Poor Boba Fett. He came to a pretty lame end by falling into the Sarlacc pit. His jetpack didn’t even help him. Well, if you love that classic Return of the Jedi scene, you can recreate it by making your very own Sarlacc Bundt cake.

Jenny Landa’s sarlacc pit cake awesome because it is easy to make and looks realistic. This sarlacc is made from a split chocolate-covered stawberry, chocolate-gummy worms, and almonds. Just bake the cake, blend up some ginger snap cookies for the Tatooine sand, insert your almonds for teeth and put in your chocolate covered gummy worms for tentacles.

It looks delicious. Better to eat it than fall in and have it eat you.

[via The Mary Sue]

We’ve all had that moment where we sit in front of the keyboard and have trouble just getting started. It can be an especially dire problem when the 30-day deadline of National Novel Writing Month (NaNoWriMo) looms overhead, and that was enough for inventor Steve Hoefer to craft his own USB progress meter. The Arduino-based contraption advances a real-world dial or gauge as the word count reaches the NaNoWriMo servers, giving that extra incentive to meet a daily goal or hit the ultimate 50,000-word mark on time. Hoefer characterizes it as a simple project for those who know their way around an Arduino controller; the toughest part for them may just be constructing the box that keeps the meter presentable. Full instructions are available after the break, although we’d hurry to build the meter before November starts. It could all too easily be the source of the very procrastination we’re trying to avoid.

Continue reading NaNoWriMo progress meter uses Arduino to fight writer’s block, may be its own distraction (video)

Filed under: Peripherals, Alt

NaNoWriMo progress meter uses Arduino to fight writer’s block, may be its own distraction (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Thu, 25 Oct 2012 14:34:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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I lack any of the skills you need to make cool mods and DIY projects of just about any type. That is certainly not true when it comes to modder Ben Heck. This geek took his hobby of building modded consoles and other items and turned it into his own web series. On the latest episode of his show, Heck returns to his console-modding roots showing us how to build one of his portable Xbox 360s.

Heck’s latest Xbox 360 Slim laptop has a 16-inch LED backlit display and a custom-routed and 3D printed enclosure housing the electronics from the gaming console. I’m not sure how easy something like this would be to pull off for your average DIY person with nothing but everyday tools. The fancy custom enclosure that Heck made required a computer-controlled router and a 3D printer, so unless you have ready access to those tools, you might be a little behind the curve. You can decide how difficult it might be by checking out the entire episode below:

I guess you could build something out of plywood to put your own portable console mod together. Still, even if you can’t pull off such a mod on your own, it’s very cool to see an Xbox 360 that can be played anywhere you happen to be – assuming an electrical outlet is nearby.