Hasta La Gadget!

We’ve seen a ring box that lights up, but this one’s even better. Engineer/jeweler/lover Ben Kokes made an engagement ring with LEDs for his now fiancé Julie. As if making an engagement ring wasn’t awesome enough, Kokes also made it so the LEDs would light when he’s near his fiancé.

Because he couldn’t fit a battery on the ring, Kokes designed the LEDs to be powered using an inductive charger. He attached a coil of wire on the ring using kapton tape. The wires were in turn attached to a capacitor and the three LEDs on the ring. Then he built an arm-mounted inductive transmitter.

Here’s a demo of the tender and loving charging:

Men, this is what’s known as raising the bar. Head to Kokes’ website for a thorough explanation of his build. Also Ben, we hate your guts. Signed, the rest of the men on Earth.

[via Hack A Day via Neatorama]

Most of the replicas I’ve seen are of robots, vehicles and weapons. The inspiration behind Darius Bode’s creations is a lot humbler than that. But it’s one that is quite intriguing when you see it in action: a trash compactor. To be more specific, Bode made a working replica of the Schörling 2R rearloader.

In his making-of article (pdf), Bode confesses that he’s been fascinated by the compactor since he was a kid: “I think there is some kind of magic about this packer because it moves so stolidly (sic) and calm no matter what you throw in there.” He started with cardboard models of the compactor, but in 2009 he finally decided to make one that works just like the original. He ended up making a 1:11 scale replica using aluminum and steel. It takes its time, but the tiny compactor actually works. The video below shows it taking on some aluminum cans.

Aaaand we just spent a few minutes looking at a miniature trash compactor crush some cans which we could have just as easily crushed with our hands (or heads.) Thanks Internet! There’s more where that came from. Check out Bode’s YouTube channel for additional videos of the replica.

[via Darius Bode (pdf) via Classic Refuse Trucks via Doobybrain]

The simple design of Converse Chuck Taylors make them timeless. It also makes them a tad plain and boring. Adafruit’s mod will make your Chuck Taylors stand out by making the logo on the shoes light up. It’s not as amazing as having self-lacing shoes, but it’s also way more affordable than Nike’s loot.

The mod makes use of Adafruit’s electroluminescent panel as well as its small inverters. Becky Stern of Adafruit shows a couple of ideas for the mod – a star-shaped panel and a round one. But the black star in the round design is just a vinyl cutout, so you’re free to make your own design. Like a Swoosh or something. Actually don’t do that.

Skate to Adafruit for the full instructions and parts list.

When you retire, you have to keep busy. Otherwise life could get pretty boring. Mark Haygood retired as a Baltimore police officer after two decades and now he keeps himself busy building robots – robots made from old appliances.

His first creation is HEX, a four-foot tall self-standing robot that took four years to build. HEX has fully-functional hands, arms, and legs. And even though it isn’t completely stable, it can walk. Mark is constantly working on perfecting HEX.

HEX looks pretty well designed considering that he was made from a bunch of old appliances and toys. That definitely says something about Mark’s skill. We will have to wait and see what else Mark comes up with, but he is off to a great start with HEX.

[via Damn Geeky via Gizmodo via Botropolis]

It may not be the best arcade cabinet ever, but Redditor mystery_smelly_feet’s arcade cabinet is no slouch either; especially since he made it with his own two hands. Unless of course he has six hands, in which case this sort of thing is to be expected. But I doubt it. If you’re more concerned about the logic behind a NES arcade machine, don’t worry, there’s actually a PC inside.

Mystery_smelly_feet’s gaming PC has a 3.2 GHz Intel Core i5 CPU, 16 GB RAM, a 2GB GeForce GTX 660 GPU and a 2 TB hard drive. He wired the sticks and buttons to an Ipac 2, which he says mimics keyboard input. The monitor is a 32″ Viewsonic DE3201LED. He didn’t say what brand the speakers were, but a Redditor pointed out that they might be one of Logitech’s surround speakers.

Mystery_smelly_feet used MDF to build the cabinet, with the help of the instructions made by Arcade Controls forum member stevenpbhs as his guide. He also said the he ordered the joysticks and most of the buttons from Suzo-Happ. He got the player 1 and player 2 buttons from Paradise Arcade. Finally he based the sweet NES controller graphic on this design by deviantART member BLUEamnesiac.

As you may have guessed by now, mystery_smelly_feet uses emulators to run games from different consoles on his PC. All in all it took him a total of 2 months and close to $2,000 (USD) to finish his one of a kind gaming setup. Good job man! Now go do something about those smelly feet.

[via Reddit via Joystiq]