If remembering to keep an emergency flashlight charged is beyond your responsible capabilities, here’s a great tutorial on how to make another backup light source that never needs power or batteries. Over on Korean-based Hobby Design there’s a relatively simple steb-by-step guide on how to make these glowing silicone light bulbs that should provide enough light to help you find your way around during a power outage.
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If your laptop is having a bad case of the hots, this triangular piece of silicone might be the perfect solution.
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Whosoever holds this ice tray, if he be worthy, shall possess the power of ice. Fortunately this officially-licensed silicone mold has low standards about who it deems worthy.
You only need to pay $14 (USD) and it will do your bidding. As long as your bidding is for it to make hammer-shaped things.
Command thy browser and pre-ordereth thine iceth trayeth on Entertainment Midgard Earth.
[via 7 Gadgets]
Almost like a real-life version of Santa’s bag, Unikia’s new Compleat Foodskin lunchbag can magically expand—thanks to the wonder that is silicone—to accommodate even a massive midday meal. And when you’re done eating, it’s flat enough to easily slip in your bag and take home at the end of the night.
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For some reason, I always envisioned that the maze in Pac-Man was a cold place. Something about the speed with which the ghosts are scurrying about made me think that the place was like an ice box. After all, if the ghosts were hot, they’d be slow and sweaty and moving about like slugs. Now, you can recreate the icy world of my imagined Pac-Man realm thanks to the official Pac-Man ice cube tray.
This silicone tray is perfect for making ice cubes for nerdy cocktail parties (or playing at your Pac-Man cocktail table) and it’s also good for molding Jell-O or candies in official Pac-Man colors…
Wokka, wokka, wokka over to ThinkGeek now, where you can gobble up the Pac-Man ice cube tray for just $10(USD).
[via Gadget Review]
Doctor Who fans, exterminate your thirst and transport your tastebuds to a cool and refreshing place with some ice cubes made in the shapes of Daleks and the TARDIS.
This silicone tray not only makes great ice cubes, but can be used to make candies in the shape of the good Doctor’s enemy number one or his faithful space and time machine.
The Dalek and TARDIS ice cube tray is available from ThinkGeek for $12.99(USD).
Pro Tip: Add some blue food coloring to your TARDIS ice cubes and some red or yellow dye to your Daleks for added effect. That gives me another idea: DalekPops and TARDISicles.
[via That’s Nerdalicious]
A strategically thrown glass can perfectly emphasize the drunken point you’re trying to make, but cleaning up the aftermath while hungover in the morning is no fun. So swap out your fancy wine and martini glasses with these soft, silicone alternatives that can take a licking—and a smashing—and bounce right back. Each two-glass set is just $20, and they’re all but guaranteed to survive the most raucous dinner party, and unlike most wine glasses, even a perilous trip through the dishwasher. [Uncommon Goods via BLTD] More »
Next time you throw a cocktail party with a prohibition-era, Boardwalk Empire theme, I’ve got the perfect thing for you. Instead of serving up your drinks with regular ice cubes in them, try putting some gun-shaped ones in their cocktails.
All you need is this cheap silicone ice mold from DealExtreme and you can make ice cubes in the shape of tiny handguns. I guess they’re not cubes when they’re shaped like guns, though. You can also use the mold to make gun-shaped candy and chocolate, but I don’t recommend that you try and take your creations through the TSA checkpoint at the airport, unless you get a thrill from a full-body-cavity search.
For years we all assumed that robots and artificial creatures had to be made of metal and other rigid materials. But there’s now a movement to create soft, squishy bots that use unorthodox power sources like compressed air, and, believe it or not, literal explosions. More »
Remember those colorful sticky hands that you used to buy for a quarter from grocery store vending machines? Yeah, this is kind of like that — except that it’s a freaking robot. DARPA is currently working to develop low-cost silicone robots that use both air and fluid to control movement, color and temperature. In the following video, you can see one of these soft contraptions as it journeys onto a bed of rocks and then uses colored liquid to blend into its surroundings. Don’t expect this glorious sticky hand to break any land speed records, however; the silicone bot can travel approximately 40 meters per hour, or up to 67 meters per hour without the fluid. (Even the 30 second video, which goes at a snail’s pace, has been sped up five fold.)
The current demonstration implements a tethered solution as the robot’s source of power, pumps, gasses and liquids, but future developments may allow for a self-contained system. Further, rather than improving the robot’s speed, its developers will instead focus on its flexibility as a means for navigating within tight spaces. Be sure to peep the video below, and we think you’ll agree that DARPA’s creation easily puts those sticky hands to shame.
Continue reading DARPA’s low-cost silicone robot cloaks like a chameleon, treks like a snail (video)
Filed under: Robots
DARPA’s low-cost silicone robot cloaks like a chameleon, treks like a snail (video) originally appeared on Engadget on Fri, 17 Aug 2012 01:15:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.
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