Hasta La Gadget!

It’s one thing to allow a professional tattoo artist to ink your arm. It’s another thing altogether to allow a 3D printer to do it. But that’s exactly what a team of designers in Paris recently did.

By hacking together a custom tattoo gun attachment for a MakerBot 3D printer, they were able to draw a computer-generated tattoo on a man’s arm. As you can see in the video below, the tattoo is very rudimentary (a simple circle), but I’m assuming that’s because it would be pretty difficult to compensate for small movements in the recipient’s arm like a human tattoo artist can do.

What do you guys think? Will there be shopping mall kiosks in the future where you can stick your arm inside and have the art of your choice drawn on by a robot?

Me? I’m sticking with temporary tattoos.

[via Instructables]

A lot of folks say that 2014 will be the year of wearables, as in wearable technology. We’ve had wearable devices such as watches and cameras for decades, but the past couple of years we’ve seen devices like Google Glass, Pebble, fitness trackers and more. MbientLab is giving tinkerers and small entrepreneurs a chance to ride the wave with MetaWear.

MetaWear is a small, affordable and developer-friendly platform for creating your own wearable device, or at least a prototype. It’s powered by the ARM Cortex M0 SoC. It has Bluetooth LE connectivity and has a built-in accelerometer, temperature sensor, buzzer, coin motor and RGB LED. It also has two analog/digital I/O pins and an I2C bus. On the software side, it already has its own API, and MbientLab will be releasing open source Android and iOS apps for MetaWear as well.

In my brief chat with MbientLab’s Laura Kassovic, she said that the MetaWear can be used to build a fitness tracker that could compete with existing products like FitBit’s products or Nike’s FuelBand if you so choose, saving you a lot of resources in the process: “First off, you don’t have to spend 4 years at University to get your engineering degree just so you can write firmware. So that’s 4 years we are saving you! We are also saving you the time it takes to prototype, test, and certify hardware just so that you can put it on the store shelf. That’s another 4-6 months of reduced development time. We save developers 80 to 90% of their development time and cost with MetaWear (and I think that’s awesome).”

But Laura is also excited about the potential of MetaWear to enable tinkerers to create niche or even one-off wearable devices: “MetaWear will allow developers to create devices that large companies aren’t interested in building or devices that are very niche (and in my opinion, very cool). Perhaps you want to build a necklace that lights up when your Grandma calls. Perhaps you have an Oculus Rift and you want to add force feedback pods you wear on your body to create an even more realistic simulation. Maybe you have a pet iguana and you want to track its movement but you simply can’t outfit your iguana with a Fitbit Flex; so the natural solution is to build custom on MetaWear instead!” 

So put on your best fitting browser and pledge at least $30 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a MetaWear kit as a reward. Go and get that Facebook money. Or make a fatness tracker. The power is yours.

The laser-crazy toymaker Patrick Priebe recently shared what he admits to be the dumbest thing he’s ever made: lasers mounted on a pair of goggles. There are actually two pairs of lasers on the goggles, with the lower-powered red beams used for aiming.

Patrick was inspired by Cyclops, but any X-Men fan will tell you that Scott’s optic blast is more of a sledgehammer than a laser beam – it won’t burn you, but it will push you through a mountain. On the other hand, anyone who’s a fan of life will tell you not to argue with a madman packing lasers and flamethrowers.

Gene Splice your browser and head to Patrick’s website for more of his custom weapons.

[via Engadget]

We’re fans of toy modder Chris Hooton aka Sabretooth and have featured a couple of his unique creations. This time he modified a Monster High doll, turning an unholy teenage girl into a female version of Iron Man. She’s still articulated and even has a removable face plate.

Sabretooth is auctioning the Iron Girl doll on eBay until March 30. As of this writing you have to bid at least $30 (USD) for a chance to take this heroine home.

[via Super Punch]

Tinkerer Steve Hoefer found a way to put those kitschy chattering teeth toy to good use. With the help of a 555 timer chip, a servo and some soldering, you can turn the toy into a timer that automatically counts down as you start brushing.

When you remove your toothbrush from the Toothy Toothbrush Timer’s toothbrush holder, a switch activates the chattering teeth. When the teeth stop chomping, you’re done brushing. That’s all there is to it. Steve set his timer at 2 minutes and 10 seconds, but you can of course set your own time.

Floss your browser and head to MAKE for the full guide.

[via Evil Mad Scientist Labs]