Hasta La Gadget!

A couple of years ago Robbie Rane and his friends were making up funny euphemisms for taking a dump. One of his buddies contributed “Toss Boba Fett in the Sarlacc.” The joke got stuck in Robbie’s head like pudding on porcelain, until one day he could bear it no more and decide to take the metaphor literally.

With the help of illustrator Alyssa Scott, Robbie made a set of stickers that will make a toilet bowl look like the Great Pit of Carkoon. Along with Boba Fett – the bounty hunter, not Robbie’s friend’s poop – the set also includes stickers of Han Solo and Chewbacca saving Lando Calrissian.

Robbie sells the Toilet Sarlacc decal set for $25 (USD). I don’t know how much your plumber will charge to install it.

[via Nerdist]

Pool tables come in hundreds of different styles, but if you really want to make your setup unique, check out OpenPool. It’s an augmented reality system that lets you project visual effects on the bed that react to the motion of the balls.

OpenPool is an open source program that uses a Kinect sensor to track the balls on the table, then feeds the visual effects to a projector mounted above the table. OpenPool also has an optional complementary device that triggers additional visual effects when a ball sinks into a pocket.

OpenPool isn’t for small time players though. You have to pledge at least $5,000 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a full OpenPool kit, which includes a PC, a Kinect and a projector – and that doesn’t include the pool table. You can also get a DIY kit – basically just the software and a mount for the projector – by pledging at least $1,000. Masse your browser to the OpenPool website to see additional information as well as more demo videos.

[via Gadgetify]

Back in 2011 we featured a couple of humanoid robots designed to play table tennis. Industrial mechanic Ulf Hoffman recently unveiled a similar robot that he and his friends have been working on for the past couple of years. He calls it the Ulf Hoffman Tischtennis Roboter (Ulf Hoffman Table Tennis Robot) or UHTTR-1 for short.

As you can see the robot’s arm is on a rail mounted at one of the ends of a ping pong table. It’s made of aluminum, making it light enough for its servos to rapidly ferry it across the length of the table. It may only have one arm, but the robot has two things we don’t have: a second pair of eyes. Four cameras mounted at the top corners of the room track the ball’s position and send that data to the UHTTR-1′s software.

Ulf hasn’t said much about the robot’s program, but as you can see it has a variety of settings that help define its play style, including speed and spin. It even seems to have difficulty levels. I’m a bit worried about that “Evolve” setting.

We didn’t see it put to the test in the video, but I think you can beat the robot with a well-placed drop shot. Then again when you’re dealing with a robot that can evolve, all bets are off. Grip your browser and head to Ulf’s blog for more on his robot.

[via Laughing Squid]

These electrical plugs look like noses, just in case you want some great big nostrils on your wall. These Hanaga Tap Nose Outlets from design firm ekoD Works will make your home look pretty damn weird.

They will turn any horizontal U.S. or Japanese wall outlet into a nose-shaped vertical outlet that you can plug into, making it look even weirder.

These come in black, white and pink and sell for $35(USD) a piece. That’s pretty expensive for a nose-shaped outlet. Never mind the fact that it’ll block two outlets due to its height. ‘Snot cool man.

I suppose you could draw a face around the outlet area and really complete the package if you have to have a nose on your wall. Humans are weird. Am I the only one creeped out by this? Just a little?

[via Coolest Gadgets via Geekologie]

If you watched the Oscars, you are probably familiar with the selfie that was taken at the show with Ellen DeGeneres and a bunch of other famous people in the pic. That wasn’t so much a spontaneous selfie as it was blatant product placement for Samsung. I’d say whatever it cost Samsung was money well spent.

Being a sucker for anything cool made from LEGOs, I happen to think this LEGO recreation of that famous selfie is better than the real thing. Can someone tell me if that is Kid or Play there blocking Angelina? I am pretty sure that hand in the air is her about to crush his skull.

The LEGO parody was created by an artist called Iain Heath from The Living Brick. It took him 12 hours to build and he stated work the day after the Oscars. Heath said, “As soon as an image that interests me begins to go viral, I rush to my LEGO collection, do a fast build, get it online as quickly as possible and ride the wave.”

[via Mashable]