Hasta La Gadget!

The cool and detailed armor of characters from the Halo universe means it’s quite hard to emulate them in cosplay. Unless you happen to be a pale, short-haired 6’7″ 287 lb. male, in which case you can just come as yourself and say you’re John-117. A cosplayer going by the handle LilTyrant decided to dress up as Kat, and that’s exactly what she did.

For reference, IGN’s Halo Wiki has a screenshot of Kat, who as many of you know is from Halo: Reach. Note that LilTyrant’s costume doesn’t have Kat’s helmet cam and tactical case, but she did say she’ll those later on. We’ll cut her some slack because she wanted to finish this by Halloween, she said she’s still “new to armor making” and because the costume is freakin’ awesome.

Unlike most cosplayers I’ve seen, LilTyrant was kind – and obsessed – enough to document practically every step she took to make her armor. She doesn’t just dress as Kat, she’s as smart as Kat. Head to the 405th Infantry Division to see her guide. Microsoft should hire her to make cosplay versions of the Halo 4 armor.

[via Reddit]

Last year we saw a prototype for an unwearable Pip-Boy 3000, which involved using a smartphone to create a replica that was functional, or at least interactive. This hack is not as high tech, because it only uses a digital picture frame, but at least it’s wearable.

The replica was made by amateur prop maker and sculpture student Zachariah Perry as a gift for his brother. Awwww. As with the replica we saw last year, Zachariah also used the Pip-Boy alarm clock that was included in the Survival Edition of Fallout 3. Then he inserted the innards of a digital picture frame and covered it with the domed glass from a slide viewer, giving it a great retro look. He made three buttons to switch between the images being displayed on the frame, which are screenshots from the Pip-Boy 3000 of his brother’s Fallout save game. Double awwww. The knob at the lower left toggles the lights at the bottom of the display. Finally the separate, gizmo you see on the glove is an MP3 player, which he couldn’t fit inside the case of the alarm clock.

Now Zachariah’s brother is ready to leave their vault. Check out Zachariah’s blog for more pictures of the replica.

[via Hack A Day]

3D printing is the bee’s knees, but we’re not printing our masterpieces yet – 3D printed essays! Yeah! – because 3D printers are still quite expensive, and of course 3D modeling isn’t exactly common knowledge. Virginia Tech has a solution for the former problem: the Dream Vendor.

The Dream Vendor resides in the Department of Mechanical Engineering at Virginia Tech. It doesn’t sell its services because anyone can use the machine for free. The Dream Vendor is made up of four Thing-O-Matics, an old model of 3D printers from MakerBot. Instead of money, users insert an SD card containing the 3D template and the Dream Vendor – which we now realize is misnamed – will print the object.

I wonder if it’s possible to print another Dream Vendor part-by-part.

[Virginia Tech via Reddit & Gizmowatch]

Now that arcade centers are mostly gone and their patrons have more gray hairs than time, some companies have capitalized by coming up with accessories that turn the iPad into a mini arcade cabinet. But if you’re skilled at building PCs or programming, you’ll be better off with the Picade, a mini arcade cabinet kit that’s meant to be powered by small PCs such as the Raspberry Pi.

The Picade was invented by Pimoroni, the some company who came up with the Pibow case for the Raspberry Pi. As I said, the Picade will be delivered to you as a kit that can be assembled in under an hour. It has all the components you need – an LCD, arcade joysticks, illuminated buttons, amplifier, speaker and of course the cabinet panels. You just have to supply its brains – a Raspberry Pi, a Pandaboard or any mini-ITX PC will do. You can also use the Picade as an additional monitor when you’re not gaming.

As mentioned in the video, the Picade also has a Mini version. Check the graphic below for the comparison:

You can reserve an early unit of the Picade Mini by pledging at least £120 (~$190 USD) on its Kickstarter fundraiser, while a pledge of at least £192 (~$305 USD) gets you the full Picade. If you’re put off by the bare cabinet, then you’ll be happy to know that the final kit will come with various original artwork that can be applied to the panels.

Most of the 3D printed objects we’ve featured have that 3D printed look: a single-colored material that has sharp and exact edges or grooves, something that looks like a prototype. Which is why I was really blown away by this piece made by Greg Petchkovsky:

Even though he didn’t have a 3D scanner, Greg was able to make a 3D model of this particular section of the sandstone wall by taking pictures of it from different angles, which were then fed into Agisoft PhotoScan to create a 3D model. In case you were wondering, the parts that look like LEGO blocks are also part of the piece; Greg made them from scratch using a 3ds Max. After much tweaking and customizing, Greg sent his custom model to Shapeways to be printed. Greg painted some parts of the model to make it even more lifelike before finally placing it on the chipped corner of the sandstone wall.

Looking at Greg’s work, I can’t help but think of what further questions this will raise about the value of art. We can already make perfect copies of music and movies; what will happen when anyone can print perfect copies of sculptures, clothes and the like? I guess that’s for tomorrow’s artists and consumers to decide. For now you can check out Greg’s Instructables page for more details on his project.

[via Reddit]