Hasta La Gadget!

Sometimes the stuff cluttering your desk and bookshelves just needs a little something extra. But what is it that’s missing? Well I’ll tell you. You need to put some feet on it.

Yes, thanks to the marvels of 3D printing technology, you can now add little feet to pretty much anything, thanks to Little Feet for Everything. These silly accessories are made from ceramics cast from 3D printed molds. They’re perfect for adding a base to all sorts of inanimate objects. Just put some sticky dots on them, and they’ll hold in place.

And these little feet don’t just come in human form, nope. There’s also an option for chicken feet – which reminds me of the time I went to a Chinese dim sum meal where they spoke very little English and when I asked for chicken, they presented me a plateful of delightful chicken feet to suck on. No thanks.

So what are you waiting for? Get your hands on some feet over on Shapeways now. The human feet go for about $20(USD), while the chicken feet sell for about $18.

Now all you need is some googly eyes, and you’ll be all set.

A team of researchers in Switzerland have been working on a new robot that’s able to climb vertical surfaces of all sorts using unique sticky feet. The robot can climb all sorts of surfaces including walls, rock, aluminum, and others. The developers behind the robot believe it could be used to help with mountain rescues, construction crews, or painting walls and ceilings.

The wall climbing ‘bot was developed by Liyu Wang, Lina Graber and Fumiya Iida at the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology in Zürich.

The robot is able to cling to vertical surfaces using special plastic footpads that heat rapidly causing them to melt. When the plastic melts, the compound slimes into the nooks and crannies on the surface it’s climbing allowing it to stick. The robot then uses thermoelectric effect to cool the plastic allowing the foot to release so a step can be taken. The adhesives in the plastic feet melt at about 70°C.

While sticky feet made of melting plastic may not sound particularly strong, the researchers claim that the robot can carry five times its own mass up a vertical wall.

[via New Scientist]