Hasta La Gadget!

Here’s another story about another cool dad. Where were all of the cool dads when I was growing up? Why are dads so cool now? Why do we never hear about granddads doing cool geek stuff? All I know is that this kid is super lucky. The kid in this video not only has a Fisher-Price Power Wheels Lightning McQueen, but he worked with his dad to make some cool modifications.

It started off as a slow boring toy 3 years ago, but little Evan’s ride now has metal rims with rubber tires, an aluminum back half chassis, dual sealed gel batteries with an output of 24 volts, a 500 watt .66 horsepower electric motor, disk brakes, throttle modulated variable speed control with reverse and Sparco battery cut-off switch. Does your car have all that? Check out the new and improved ride in the video below:

Now this kid has an awesome ride to go along with his awesome dad.

[via Dvice via Geekologie]

Working at the desk is the calling for many of us, although whether this ‘calling’ is intentional or otherwise, that I shall leave it to you to decide. Needless to say, any decent work desk will need an accompanying lamp, just in case you decide to burn the proverbial midnight oil. Who uses oil lamps anymore these days in a modern air conditioned office? This is where the $39.99 DIY Classic Desk Lamp comes in handy, where it allows you to have this sense of satisfaction by building your own lamp – although you would have enlisted a little bit of outside help in making sure all the parts are ready for the assembly process.

This mini wooden desk lamp will come with its own fair share of casters for you to put together yourself, and there is no need to cut anything or hammer a nail or two here and there, hence greatly reducing the chances of experiencing an accident that would require you to rush yourself to the nearest first aid counter. The DIY Classic Desk Lamp measures around 24 inches in height, and will be accompanied by a 3 foot long extension cord. Now, to make sure you have enough back up bulbs just in case Murphy decides to strike…

[ DIY Classic Desk Lamp copyright by Coolest Gadgets ]

Here’s something Google’s Glass can’t do: create a virtual tent of cats for those times when you can’t be around your favorite furball. The Cat Immersion Project is the bizarre and brilliant DIY handiwork of the staff at the Seattle Children’s Hospital, projecting photos of more than 3,000 cats into a tented space – complete with purring sound effects – so that 16-year-old cancer patient Maga Barzallo Sockemtickem could get her dose of felines despite being in protective isolation.

Sockemtickem was forced spend more than seven months in hospital in 2011, and then spent a further month more recently in post-transplant recovery. During all that time she was unable to see her own cat, Merry, because of the risk of damage to her immune system.

In response, staff at the Children’s hospital put out a call on Facebook for messages of support and photos of cats, and received a huge number of responses in return. With the help of some sheets, speakers and projectors, the “virtual cat cocoon” was born.

Technically straightforward, then, but with a huge potential to change someone’s day through the awesome power of cats. We’ll be petitioning Google for the inclusion of a virtual cat plugin for Project Glass.

[via Wired]

Cat Immersion Project creates crowdsourced kitty cocoon is written by Chris Davies & originally posted on SlashGear.
© 2005 – 2012, SlashGear. All right reserved.

The perfect compliment to a massive hackerspace like Massachusetts’s Artisan’s Asylum? An industrial vending machine stocked with all the necessities for your average modder. Fastenal specializes in business industrial vending machines, stocking up units with things like office and first aid supplies. The company also provides cutting tools and materials for welders and metal fabricators, making it a bit of a godsend for hackerspace communities, where venturing out to a hardware store often means an annoying interruption of a project’s workflow — or, as a woman at the space told us: a lot of people order takeout because they don’t want leave when they’re working, so it sort of makes sense that the space would offer up such a solution. Members swipe their cards, applying the charges to their membership accounts. The thing stocks welding gloves, dust masks, screw drivers, tape measures, various adhesives and multi-tools, so modders never have to leave to safety of their hackerspace again.

Filed under: Misc. Gadgets

Visualized: industrial vending machines are a modder’s best friend originally appeared on Engadget on Mon, 06 Aug 2012 19:44:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

Permalink   |   | Email this | Comments

When it was time for Serena Thompson—a contributing editor at Country Living Magazine—to upgrade her farmhouse kitchen, she wanted to find ways to maximize the space while still keeping it functional. Which led to the creation of this fantastic cutting board drawer that sits atop a second bag-lined drawer for catching food scraps. More »