Hasta La Gadget!

Watch out Ken. Barbie’s packing some steel. Actually Jim Rodda’s Barbie armor is made of biodegradable plastic. Jim originally wanted to print glitter cannons that fit on My Little Pony toys as a birthday gift to his niece, but it proved to be too complicated. Four cups of coffee and a hot shower later, the idea for Barbie armor sprang out of his mind, fully formed.

The field plate armor in the image above and in the video below is one of Jim’s first prototypes. He’s currently designing a parade armor, a more detailed version of the field plate armor that has “filigrees, engravings, gewgaws, gubbinses, and assorted skeuomorphisms.”

Aside from being silly, Jim is also generous. He’s sharing the 3D files for the Athena Makeover Kit, another Barbie costume, on his website.

Pledge at least $5 (USD) on Kickstarter to get the 3D files for the field plate armor as a reward, while a pledge of at least $10 gets you the files for the parade armor. Jim will most likely make those files available after the Kickstarter, but he isn’t planning on selling the printed armor themselves because that would be beyond his means.

If you want to get the printed armor right away, pledge for the higher reward tiers ASAP because Jim probably won’t print anymore of them after his fundraiser ends. Pledge at least $200 to get the field plate armor set and at least $250 to get the parade armor set. This reminds me, I’ve yet to finish Jeanne D’Arc.

I’m taking a break from getting my ass handed to me playing Titanfall, and I just had to post this. This mech is the best possible way to display your smartphone.

It was made by MechWorld, using a variety of random metal bits and bobs, many of which look like the leftover parts from an IKEA cabinet I once put together. When there’s no cellphone docked as its pilot, I wonder if it has an auto-pilot follow mode where it fires RPGs at other phone stands it doesn’t like.

Want it? Drop whatever you’re doing, gather up 97 bucks and call for a dropship to kick you out over Etsy now.

[via ThisIsWhyI’mBroke]

Our favorite modder, Ben Heck, has come up with another cool creation. As he has done numerous times in the past, he has built a special controller to help the disabled to play video games. The modified gaming controller was requested by one of his viewers and as usual, he has delivered.

This accessibility controller lets gamers with use of only a single hand play PS4 games. All the buttons on the left side have been shifted and re-fitted on the right side, including the left analog stick, which was put on the back of the unit. Ben will reveal the build on an upcoming episode of his show, but the 40 second trailer here gives us a little tease.

This is going to make a lot of folks very happy. Keep an eye out on Element 14 for the full episode, which is expected to premiere later today.

[via BGR via New Launches]

Phil Harlow wanted an easy way for him and his roommates to split the bill for their kegerator’s beer keg refills. So they all decided that he’ll just pay for it. Just kidding. Phil is working on a facial recognition system for their kegerator that will keep a tab for them.

Phil’s setup is powered by a Raspberry Pi. It uses two flow sensors to detect if the tap is turned on, at which point a camera will activate to examine the user’s face. A touchscreen monitor displays relevant details, including the user’s name, the type and amount of beer poured and its equivalent cost. Phil and his buddies can also scroll through the kegerator’s history to see their tabs.

Now all it needs is a towel, some interesting stories and a plate of nuts. Head to Phil’s blog for more on his hack.

[via Hack A Day]

High quality microscopes cost thousands of dollars and can be hard to operate and maintain. A group of researchers from Stanford University are close to changing that with a microscope that’s made mostly out of paper and costs less than a dollar to make.

The Foldscope was conceptualized by Jim Cybulski, James Clements and Asst. Prof. Manu Prakash. They were moved to develop the revolutionary microscope because they wanted to speed up the diagnosis and treatment of various diseases in developing countries. In his recent TED presentation, Asst. Prof. Prakash said that right now it can take months for patients in developing countries to get diagnosed and treated partly because microscopes are bulky, hard to maintain and expensive to acquire . So they set out to design a microscope that’s portable, easy to operate and can be mass produced at low costs. It looks like they succeeded.

In their paper, Jim, James and Asst. Prof. Prakash. said that the Foldscope can provide a magnification of up to 2,000X depending on the lens used. All of its components can be packed on a single sheet of card stock, which can also serve as an instruction manual.  Foldscope is also resistant to impact and water. It’s so small that you can carry multiple Foldscopes in your pocket. The only part of the microscope that needs electricity is an LED, which can last over 50 hours on a button cell battery. Best of all, it only costs between $0.58 to $0.97 to make. Below is Asst. Prof. Prakash’ TED presentation about the Foldscope:

How amazing is that? A copy of Jim, James and Asst. Prof. Prakash’s paper is available from the Cornell University Library archive. If you want to get your hands on one, head to the Foldscope team’s website and apply to become one of the their 10,000 beta testers.

[via Wired via Reddit]