Hasta La Gadget!

Check out this video of Colin Furze (the maniac who gave us those cool Wolverine claws) walking on the ceiling using his newly-completed, homemade Magneto boots. I question his sanity after seeing him laughing hysterically over the feat. Magneto never got that excited. This is proof that you respect a super power more if you have to earn it, rather than being born with it.

He did have the good sense to try it on a low ceiling though. That’s several small steps on the ceiling for man, one giant leap for nerdkind who have spare electromagnets at home.

Here’s some behind-the-scenes videos of how Colin made the boots and how he learned to walk in them:

Not to be mean or anything, but it would have been funny if he got stuck and had to hang there until help arrived.

We’ve seen all kinds of game controller plushies, but I think this is the first time I’ve seen one that can actually be used to play video games. Adafruit’s Becky Stern built the soft controller using their Flora Arduino-compatible platform and some conductive thread and fabric.

Even though Becky’s design looks like a squishy, oversize NES controller, your computer will recognize the plushie as a USB keyboard, so you can use it with any keyboard-based game. If you’re handy with stitching, perhaps you can modify Becky’s guide and make a plushie of your favorite controller. It would probably take a long time to build a full keyboard plushie though.

Make a plush browser and head to Adafruit for the full guide and parts list.

Watching a master at work is a great way to acquire motor skills. But it’s not that easy to keep an eye on someone else while looking at your own movements to see if you’re doing it right. A proof of concept system called Ghostman helps you do both simultaneously, thanks to augmented reality glasses.

Ghostman was designed by researchers from the University of Tasmania and the University of Washington, led by Dr. Winyu Chinthammit. Using two pairs of Vuzix Wrap 920AR glasses, Ghostman overlays a teacher’s hand over the student’s own vision. The student can then see the demonstration from his teacher’s point of view while his own hand is also in full view.

In their limited tests, Dr. Chinthammit and his colleagues found out that teaching a new motor skill through Ghostman is as effective as going about it with an instructor sitting by your side. This means it could one day be possible for instructors to effectively teach motor skills through a remote session. Although I think it would also be beneficial if the teacher could see from his student’s perspective as well to help him provide feedback.

Come on doc, we all know a pottery lesson would’ve been more appropriate. Head to Hindawi to read the researchers’ paper on Ghostman.

All images by Dr. Chinthammit et al.

[via New Scientist via PSFK]

The tower of Pringles cans you’re looking at here isn’t the remnants of a week-long gaming marathon (though it could be). Instead, it’s a fully-functional musical instrument – assuming that you like slightly off-key, strange sounding tunes.

The functional sculpture was made by Brooklyn music production company Fall on Your Sword. It’s made of almost 250 green, red and yellow Pringles cans – and was rigged to play sounds when the containers are pressed on. It’s not clear how it works, but it sounds like it uses recorded sound samples, not steam. Here, check it out:

Okay, it’s not exactly the most ear-pleasing sound, but imagine what it would have sounded like if the cans still had potato chips in them.

[via designboom]

A few years ago Ben Heck made a breath-operated controller to substitute for the kick drum pedal of the Guitar Hero drum set, allowing a wheelchair-bound player to rock out. This time, the master modder made his own USB-based pedals to give him added control options when playing video games on the PC.

Ben’s pedals are run by a Teensy board. His computer will recognize them as a keyboard, making it easy to map commands in games. Ben made it so he can map up to two commands per pedal: the first command is activated with a slight press and the second command is triggered by pressing harder on the pedal.

Watch Ben build them the video below. Skip to around 15:25 to see the finished pedals.

(Video courtesy of Element14 and Newark)

Don’t have Ben’s hands to help your feet? Don’t worry. There are commercially available PC foot pedals like the Stinkyboard, the Fragpedal and the Alto Edge Infinity.

[via The Ben Heck Show via Ubergizmo]