Hasta La Gadget!

Black Milk Clothing’s latest geeky collection features the Dark Knight and his enemies. You’ll see Bats, Joker, Poison Ivy and Harley Quinn draped all over a variety of clothing. No Black Mask on Black Milk? I guess he’s not popular enough.

Undoubtedly the star of the collection is the Batman Cape Suit, a swimsuit that comes with a detachable cape.

But the other swimsuits are awesome too.

The collection also includes t-shirts…

jackets…

a catsuit…

…and of course leggings.

There’s a lot more in the collection including clothes with less conspicuous Batman designs. Rise and head to Black Milk Clothing to browse and order.

[via DudeIWantThat]

I was going to talk about a pixel art LED display that’s currently raising funds on Kickstarter when I remembered that I already saw something much better: Al Linke’s PIXEL. It turns out he’s also raising funds on Kickstarter for PIXEL V2, an improved version of his display.

Like the original display, PIXEL V2 has 1024 LEDs arranged in a 32×32 matrix. After all, it’s designed to display low-res images and animations so increasing the displays resolution wasn’t necessary. What makes PIXEL V2 much better than its predecessor is that it’s more versatile and customizable, both in terms of software and hardware. For starters, you can now control it with an OS X computer and a Raspberry Pi via USB, in addition to the Android and Windows USB and Bluetooth connectivity that was also present in the original. Unfortunately, it still has no support for iOS though.

Aside from directly sending images to the display via a PC or an Android device, you can also store images on PIXEL V2′s onboard SD card in stand alone mode, after which it will keep displaying images and even animated gifs even if it’s not connected to any computer or mobile device. Another neat feature of PIXEL V2  are its mixed media overlays. As shown in the image below, the overlays allow you to display a drawing on top of the LED display.

PIXEL V2 comes with over 150 samples of pixel art, but as always you can send other images to the display. As shown in the video below, you can even make apps for PIXEL V2. Turn it into a message board, make it display the weather and more. It also has five sensor inputs and optional alcohol and proximity sensors for even more creative applications, although these sensors require an Android device to work.

Pledge at least $260 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a fully assembled PIXEL V2 display. Unassembled kits and partial parts are also available at lower pledges.

This robot fights the winter blues. A company called SuperDroid makes large remote-controlled snow plow robots. Use them to clear your front yard, push your cat back to your house, destroy your neighbor’s snowman and more from the warmth and safety of your home.

The robot has six 13″ tiller tires, each powered by a 24V motor. Its 52″ x 16″ snow plow blade is raised and lowered with the help of an air compressor.

Watch the robot do what it does best:

Unfortunately, it does require a remote operator, and isn’t autonomous. SuperDroid can also install additional batteries, chains for the wheels and cameras on the robot. They can even make it work over the Internet so you can control it even if you’re on another continent. But you may not want any of those add-ons once you hear the robot’s basic price. Each one costs an ice cold $7,900 (USD). Dig your browser out of the snow and head to SuperDroid if you’re packing that much paper.

[via Gadgetify]

A few years ago we found out about mighty Roombas that were moonlighting as sumo wrestlers. Jose Julio’s RepRap 3D printer also has a sporting spirit. The robotics enthusiast unlocked his gadget’s potential and turned it into an air hockey player.

The robot has three motors: two for moving its mallet across the y-axis and one for movement along the x-axis. Jose Julio wrote the drivers for the motors in Arduino. He then color-coded the mallet and the puck, installed a PlayStation Eye camera and wrote a program in C to make his robot see. Finally he wrote another Arduino program that predicts where the puck will go so that its motors can react appropriately.

Another neat thing about Jose Julio’s setup is that the table uses two old PC fans to create a cushion for the puck to slide on.

Jose Julio knows that his robot still needs a lot of practice – and programming – before it’s ready for primetime. For instance, it doesn’t know where the goal is, though as you saw in the video it can already score even with that handicap. But Jose Julio says he can easily imagine RepRap enthusiasts making air hockey robots of their own, improving and refining its programming so that robots could have different difficulty levels and even different strategies.

Insert a token in your browser and head to Jose Julio’s blog for more on his project.

[via The Next Web]

Minifigs are often hated and feared by humans because they are different. Also because it hurts when you step on them. True believer Glen Bricker wants to build a haven for these extraordinary toys with his proposal for an official LEGO X-Men X-Mansion, aka Xavier’s School for Gifted Youngsters.

Glen’s proposal is for a four level mansion that folds out to reveal its rooms, which includes the famous Danger Room, Cerebro, Professor Xavier’s office, Beast’s laboratory and Storm’s attic garden.

Glen included 45 minifigs in his mockups to make the proposal more appealing, but he knows that the number of minifigs – if any – that will be included in the playset will be far fewer. He knows that LEGO and Marvel will have the final say, but if he had his way he’d include Prof. X, Beast, Shadowcat, Gambit and Mystique and maybe Storm and Cyclops as well. What did Wolverine ever do to you bub?

Team up with the Uncanny Browser and head to LEGO Cuusoo to vote for the proposal. Glen also suggests reaching out to Marvel – either through Facebook, Twitter or sending them an email at officex@marvel.com – to let them know about the proposal.

[via Glen Bricker via Super Punch]