Hasta La Gadget!

Check out this paper airplane folding and launching machine that a group of engineers built. Great. Yet another machine taking our jobs. This time they are putting kids and bored office workers out of business.

Sure, they aren’t the best planes ever and they aren’t folded that sharply, but they do manage to fly a few feet. A machine did that. I bet the T-800 can’t make a paper plane this good.

We already have a machine that will twiddle your thumbs for you. What’s next? A machine that throws pencils up to stick into the ceiling? It will probably be a human’s job to get them down so the machine can do it again. Damn paper pushers. And folders. Do not let this in your office.

[via Geeks are Sexy via Geekologie]

YouTuber Hknssn may be missing a few vowels, but that hasn’t kept him from being awesome. He was able to make a LEGO machine that can automatically take a sheet of paper, fold it into a paper plane and then launch it on its own. In other words, Hknssn made a toy that makes its own toys.

The machine is about 59″ long and 16″ wide. As you might have guessed, Hknssn relies heavily on LEGO Mindstorms NXT parts to make the machine work, including two NXT Intelligent Brains, five NXT servo motors, four NXT color sensors and an NXT accelerometer. It also uses five Power Function XL motors and between 6,000 to 7,000 LEGO pieces. Check it out in action in the video below, which Hknssn hiked up to about three times the normal speed.

Hknssn shared the parts list of the machine on YouTube and a shot of its 3D model on ImageShack, but it seems he didn’t make a guide for building one. He’s probably working on a LEGO machine that can do that for him.

[via BuzzFeed]

Growing up I built more than my fair share of paper airplanes. I’m sure a lot of you guys built plenty of them yourselves, and we still build quite a few paper flying machines around my house. I’ll let you in on a little secret – being able to fly paper airplanes off of the landing is the main reason why I purchased a two-story home.

But if your paper airplanes don’t stay in the air long enough for you, you’ll want to get one with a propeller to help things along. TailorToys has announced their updated PowerUp 3.0 electric paper airplane conversion kit that allows your paper planes to actually fly under their own power.

These kits have been around for a while, but version 3.0 now allows you to control your airplane using a smartphone. This version of the paper airplane kit works with any smartphone supporting Bluetooth 4.0. While there’s no video footage yet of the PowerUp 3.0 in action, here’s a clip of the previous generation flying high in the sky:

The kit is scheduled to ship in August 2013. The company also unveiled a similar PowerUp Boat kit that converts your paper boats into electric powerboats. The Boat Kit will be available in July 2013. Pricing for both kits is undisclosed at this time.