I have to admit when I first heard of drone selfies, I thought that actual drones were taking selfies of themselves.
That seemed a bit odd, but it made a lot more sense when I saw Amit Gupta’s drone selfie video. It simply blew my mind. The zoom out is quite amazing.
There are now a few more dronies popping up – so it’s almost sort of a thing now. The trick of a good dronie is to find a good location, because otherwise it just looks ordinary.
I like the overall look captured by the dronies as well. You can see so much detail when the drone zips away.
Bigger is always better, especially if you want to get the internet’s attention. This super-sized game of Jenga should get the even the most cynical netizens to take notice.
This is Jenga on steroids. Note that call the game “Stack”, because nobody wants to get sued. The playing pieces are 600-pound blocks of wood and the players are operating five different pieces of heavy equipment to remove them. The video is a promotional video from Cat Products (Caterpillar) and you have to hand it to them, this is a great way to draw attention to their equipment.
All I know is, When that stack falls over, you’d better be standing well away from it.
After preparing the deceased crow’s body through procedures that would make Saw look like Teletubbies had the bird been alive, Allis cut a hole on the bird’s head, set a third crow eye on the exposed skull with clay and then made an eye ring using Apoxie Sculpt. As a final touch, she had the crow perch on a copy of A Feast for Crows.
Warg this way to Imgur to see Allis’ grisly photos of her process. If you don’t want to see the icky parts, work your way down the gallery slowly. You’ll know when to stop, because you’ll hear yourself screaming.
Ah, the Mazda Miata. It’s the scourge of autocross and road racing tracks around the world. It has little power, epic handling, and is dirt cheap to repair, making these little convertible sports cars a mainstay for motorsports around the world. Few things in life are more rewarding than shaming a person in a high-powered muscle car in a Miata with only 100hp to the wheels on a road racing course.
Tofu Drift Van recently bought what appears to be your typically clapped out Miata for $1000 with the goal of making it into a drift car. He decided to make it a bit different though, and somehow rigged up an ignition that will only start the car when you put quarters in the arcade style coin slot.
That is awesome and should be mandatory equipment on any ChumpCar or LeMons racing Miata. The owner of the car says he plans to add a Player 1 pushbutton for starting the car next.
Claptrap is kind of annoying. Cute, but annoying. The robot from Borderlands has a grating voice, he follows you everywhere, and spends way too much time beatboxing. I complain, but the game wouldn’t be the same without him. The folks over at Our Nerd Home must feel the same way because they made a Claptrap trash can.
I would say that is entirely warranted. They also have a tutorial for you to follow along and build a Claptrap disposal unit of your very own if you want one in your home. And who wouldn’t? You’ll need a step-on trash can, cables, cardboard, and some other stuff, but the end result looks pretty amazing.
It would feel great to throw trash in this guy after having to deal with him in game for a few hours. Take that, you bucket of bolts!
This Han Solo frozen in carbonite rug is perfect for hiding that trap door to your Rancor pit and it will match the real Han frozen on your wall. It really ties the room together.
You don’t have a frozen Han on the wall? Well, you can hang this rug as a tapestry too and pretend that you do. What Star Wars fan wouldn’t want a rug of Han Solo frozen in Carbonite? Well, I guess Han wouldn’t want one.
The rug comes in small which measures 31-1/2″(W) x 71-1/2″(H) or large which is 39″(W) x 90 1/2″(H).
It is made from 100% polyester/0% carbonite, and in stock right now from ThinkGeek for $49.99 to $69.99(USD).
When I was growing up, one of my favorite toys was the good old Lite Brite. I’m guessing that it was an indication that I would later find myself hopelessly addicted to pixel art. Now, technologists are working on tiny robots which can create Lite Brite style art all on their own.
Created by Disney Research and the Autonomous Systems Lab, ETH Zurich, PixelBots are round, palm-sized robots which have a LEDs inside of them, and a drive mechanism on their bottoms. An overhead camera tracks the positions of each robot and a computer controls each robot remotely. They’re designed to be able to swarm together to create rudimentary images composed of dots.
Currently, the robots can replicate images drawn on a tablet, and the can also change between images using gesture controls. They can also automatically recover their position if a user picks one up and moves it out of place.
One other neat thing is that their wheels are actually magnetic, so they could not only be used on tabletops, but they could stick to whiteboards too. While I’m not sure there are too many practical application for PixelBots, they sure look like fun, and I’d certainly love to have a fleet of them at my command.
Nick’s replicas may not be exactly the same as their virtual counterparts – Nick made the pistol and the rifle months before Titanfall came out – but they still look awesome and even have a few moving or detachable parts.
Have a closer look at Nick’s arsenal in these videos:
Call in a browser and head to Nick’s Flickr page for more shots of the weapons.
We can’t enter the digital world like the Flynns did just yet, but thanks to the Oculus Rift, you may be able to experience what it’s like to duke it out in a light cycle. Custom video game machine maker Luis Sobral aka The Arcade Man made an arcade game featuring Tron’s famous vehicles based on the virtual reality headset.
Luis calls his project RiftCycles, a game where players take part in an “immersive virtual reality light cycle battle, fighting in an arena with their bikes until “deresolution”.” To make the experience more authentic, Luis also built two light cycle models out of cardboard and metal for players to ride on.
Watch out for CLU and head to Luis’ website for more on RiftCycles.
Rodger Cleye made this awesome flying X-wing Fighter. Maybe it can shoot down some of those other drones in our skies. This 19 lb., five-foot-long X-Wing Fighter comes after Rodger already made a flying James Bond mannequin with a jet pack and the Marty McFly working hover-board.
This X-Wing is a tri-rotor design with three 100A ESCs, 1200W 1050KV motors, and 12″ rotors. It just needs an action figure in the cockpit. The frame is made from PVC to keep it as light as possible. The tri-rotor design gives it much better yaw control than quadrotors, but that means that sometimes it ends up on its nose.
Still, it is super impressive to see in action. Maybe he can make some TIE Fighter drones and a Death Star balloon and have a cool dogfight.
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