Hasta La Gadget!

Growing up I settled more than a few arguments with a quick game of thumb wrestling. Those matches always started with the chant “one, two, three, four, I declare thumb war,” which is clearly how all civilized people do it. If you ever wondered when thumb wrestling might get the inevitable upgrade, it looks like that time is now.

A new spiral-bound book has been published called simply enough Star Wars Lightsaber Thumb Wrestling. The book has seven thick pages each printed with a different dueling location. You and your foe stick your phalanges through the holes with tiny super-cool lightsaber models strapped to them with Velcro straps.

You then duke it out with little thumb sized lightsabers. This may be the perfect way to settle arguments in a more civilized time. The book is available for $12.99(USD) over at ThinkGeek, Imperial credits are not accepted.

[via Nerd Approved]

YouTuber roboband used a Raspberry Pi and his own software to “translate” the audio from some of Nintendo’s classic games. The transcriptions were then relayed in real time to two musical instruments: a self-playing piano aka a player piano and a robot percussionist. The result? Live background music and sound effects!

I know roboband’s idea is hard to describe, so it’s best if you just watch these robros in action:

More please! But robo percussionist needs to step his game up. Maybe he should take lessons from StickBoy.

[via Devour]

Ilija Stjepic wants to do for photographic printing what Instagram did for Polaroid. Ilija and his friends made the Enfojer kit. It lets you develop the images in your smartphone into black and white pictures using traditional techniques. You’ll need a darkroom, chemicals, the works. It’s the perfect gift for the budding hipster.

The most important part of Stjepic and company’s kit is the Enfojer itself. It’s an enlarger – a projector used in printing from negatives – that uses your smartphone as both the light source and the film. The Enfojer projects an image from your phone to a piece of photographic paper. Then you’ll dip that paper into a couple of chemical baths, and in about 6 minutes you’ll have a black and white photo.

The Enfojer is supposed to work with most smartphones. As shown in the image above it will also have a complementary app that provides guidance as well as basic editing features. The other parts of the kit are indispensable as well – the photographic film, the safelight, the chemical trays – but you can get those items elsewhere. Still don’t get how it works? Watch the video. Brace yourself: annoying background music is coming.

Seriously Ilija, how in John Herschel’s name did you think that music was okay? In any case, if you made it through the whole video you must be really interested in the Enfojer. Pledge at least $200 (USD) on Indiegogo to get the Enfojer as a reward. You’ll need to pledge at least $350 if you want the entire kit, which includes 100 sheets of photographic paper, trays, tongs, a safelight and a tray rack. You’ll still need to buy the required chemicals – and find a space to convert into a darkroom – even if you buy the full kit. You gotta work hard to be hip.

We’ve seen a guitar used to send emails. Here’s a piano modded into a BFC for the grand daddy of modern first person shooters. Aptly named the Doom Piano, its keys are grouped into different commands, so you don’t really need to know how to play the piano to play Doom with it. Not that anyone would play the game with this thing.

According to CNET Asia, the Doom Piano was built by a group of indie game developers for the London Hackspace, a community-run workshop for makers and tinkerers. The devs covered the piano’s hammers with copper tape, soldered the strings to a ground and then wired three I-PACs to emulate keyboard input. From there – not that I understand what “there” is – I guess it was just a matter of mapping the keys to the controls for Doom.

Ahhh, music only a space marine could love. Also, YouTuber v21 pointed out that the man playing the Doom Piano in the video is also an FPS legend. He’s Martin Hollis, the director of GoldenEye 007.

[via Sos Sosowski & CNET Asia]

The Tooth Fairy is one busy lady! She flies from house to house every night, collecting teeth that kids have left under their pillows and leaving a dollar or two (or a special surprise) in exchange for it.

So that’s the story our parents told us, and I’m sticking with it.

But with the growing population, the Tooth Fairy is probably having a hard time keeping up. Awesome dad Jeff Highsmith wanted to make sure his kid’s teeth are received in a timely manner, so he built a vacuum-powered pneumatic tube system that’ll “send” them straight to the Tooth Fairy. An adult can hang out at the receiving station to return some cash or gifts back to the child waiting on the other end of the line.

Jeff built an easy-to-navigate interface using Hype and used Raspberry Pi to power the whole thing. Aside from the Tooth Fairy, other recipients to choose from include Santa Claus and the Easter Bunny, so just think of all the wish lists and letters your kid will be sending when those holidays roll around.

[Make: via Hack a Day via Neatorama]