Hasta La Gadget!

Schildi was a pet turtle living in Germany, presumably leading a happy life, gnawing on greens and taking forever to get anywhere as turtles do, but when he was abandoned, he lost a leg somehow. Luckily for Schildi, he was rescued, and vets were able to amputate his mangled limb. They replaced it with mankind’s solution for all things: LEGO.

Yes, this turtle now has a LEGO wheel in place of its front right leg. Because let’s face it, a shopping cart wheel just would have been annoying on everyone’s ears. The doctor used a special surgical glue to stick the base block underneath Schildi and then superglue to connect the corners of the block:

“After that we could add blocks to achieve the correct height,” he said. And now the single wheel has proven to be successful, Schildi has been taken back to the animal shelter. “We will see him again once in a while for check-ups,” Azmanis said. “If he gets a ‘flat tyre’ it will be a simple matter to replace the wheel. They move around quite a lot so I’d expect to see him for a new wheel about once a year.”

They should have put a LEGO castle on his back while they were at it. That would be awesome.

[The Local via Gizmodo via Geekologie]

LEGO enthusiast Dirk aka dm_meister built pumpkin-sized versions of the mushroom power-ups from the Mario games. There’s the red Super Mushroom, the blue Mini Mushroom and the green 1-up Mushroom. Each model is made of almost 3,000 bricks and weighs 10lb. And they have eyes… holy crap I just realized Mario eats living creatures.

Here’s a closer look at the mushrooms:

Here’s a time-lapse video of Dirk making the Super Mushroom:

Dirk said he’ll upload a more helpful video with CGI building instructions. Keep an eye on his YouTube channel for that one. Meanwhile, you can check out more of his MOCs on his Flickr page.

[via it8bit]

Chris McVeigh is on a roll. Shortly after releasing his tiny LEGO consoles, the man who calls himself Powerpig has released another miniature LEGO trinket. This one’s aimed at Christmas-loving gamers. It’s a LEGO question block ornament. Sadly, it doesn’t have any room inside for a coin, or anything for that matter.

As with his other projects, Chris made a free pdf guide for building the question block ornament as well as a commercial ready-to-assemble LEGO kit. You can buy the kit from his shop for $17.50 (USD).

[via Insanelygaming]

Now that he’s conquered the world of tiny LEGO Macintosh and iMac computers, LEGO builder Chris McVeigh (aka Powerpig) has headed further backwards in time to create LEGO kit versions of the Atari 2600 and C64 personal computer.

These awesome little kits accurately capture the spirit of these seminal parts of consumer electronic history. The Atari 2600 kit sells for $42.50(USD). It’s assembled from 130 pieces, and includes two tiny joysticks and three little cartridges. When complete, the console measures about 3.75″ wide x 1″ tall x 2.5″ deep.

The Commodore 64 kit (also $42.50) is a bit less complex, and is made from 82 bricks. But that doesn’t make it any less perfect. I can imagine connecting my 1530 C2N Datasette player and loading up a copy of Attack of Mutant Camels. The C64 is also a bit bigger than the 2600, measuring 5″ wide x 1″ tall x 2.5″ deep when assembled.

Great job, Chris! Keep ‘em coming. I’ll definitely bite when you make me an Atari 800 and an Apple ][.

I love Lego everything, but spaceships are by far my favorite subject. The great ones—like this one by sioka sculpting—are outstanding examples of sci-fi design and engineering—it’s the best way to materialize your future space exploration dreams.

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