Hasta La Gadget!

There have been many attempts to recreate the design of the Hoverboards from Back to the Future II, but none of them have been functional. Now, there’s a project which just kicked off with hopes of creating an actual, working Hoverboard by the Summer of 2015 – the same time period that Marty visits in the movie.

With the goal of creating the world’s first production Hoverboard, Robert Haleluk of Haltek Industries has embarked on an Open Source, crowdfunding project.

Assuming it can actually be produced, the real world Hoverboard won’t look quite like the ones in the movies, in order to accomodate a propulsion system. According to project leader Robert Haleluk, the Hoverboard will be powered by omni-directional tubeaxial blowers – similar to the ones we saw in the Aerofex Hover Bike.

The boards would be constructed from a honeycomb carbon fiber to keep weight to a minimum. In terms of power source, Haleluk is looking at two promising new lightweight battery technologies – a Lithium-Air battery in development by IBM with the goal of powering a car for up to 500 miles on a single charge or a unique energy device being researched by Stanford which can store power in a sheet of paper with special ink infused with carbon nanotubes and silver nanowires. Of course, neither of these technologies is in production yet, so that certainly creates a risk factor for the Hoverboard project. Current off-the-shelf battery technologies would likely be insufficient to lift a passenger for any meaningful period of time.

Should the Hoverboard project come to fruition, the boards would interface with a companion smartphone app, which would provide the ability to lock and unlock the board, turn it on, and run diagnostics among other things.

In order to fund the development of the Hoverboard, Haleluk has set up an Indiegogo campaign with a funding goal of $1 million (USD). These funds will be used for research, development and production of the first Hoverboards. While a bid of $10,000 or more is required if you want to end up with an actual Hoverboard, lower pledges will be used to further research and development efforts.

Naturally, a project like this is fraught with risks for investors, and there’s a good chance that the end result will be less than stellar. But for those of us who have dreamed of seeing the futuristic vision of floating skateboards come to fruition during our lifetimes, it could be pretty exciting if it actually works out – and we’ll never know if they don’t try.

We’ve already seen some innovative ways to make action figures via 3D printing. But ModiBot might be the best and most practical 3D printed action figure yet. Instead of letting you design and print an action figure from scratch or order a 3D printed action figure of an existing character, ModiBot meets you halfway. Its a skeletal action figure with swappable parts and accessories.

The base ModiBot action figure is a stick figure with lots of slots and holes. The idea is to get a bare ModiBot and then mix and match it with 3D printed parts and accessories. Because all of this is stored in digital files waiting to be printed, it’s practically impossible for them to be sold out. Dynamo Development Labs, the company behind ModiBot, won’t have to deal with unsold stock either; they just have to print on demand. This means that it should be easy to replace any missing or broken parts. If you know how to make a 3D model, you can design the parts and accessories yourself. So you’re going to go from this:

To this:

And that’s just the beginning. Again, it’s not just the accessories that are interchangeable; the skeleton’s parts itself can be swapped. For example, there’s a dinosaur ModiBot skeleton, so you can assemble a half-man, half-dino ModiBot.

Pledge at least $15 (USD) on Kickstarter to get a ModiBot kit. When 3D printers become widely available and 3D modeling software becomes dead simple to use, ModiBot will be immortal. People will be making parts on their own and lots of third-party vendors will sell their own ModiBot-compatible goods.

You know what ModiBot is like? LEGO. If you think about it, LEGO’s minifigs are strangely unlike the rest of its toys: minifigs are barely customizable or interchangeable. ModiBot is more LEGO-like than LEGO’s own action figures. So I wouldn’t be surprised if LEGO imitates or buys out ModiBot in the future. I am also surprised that ModiBot hasn’t teamed up with Rob Schrab yet.

[via 3ders]

What is blue, has eights arms and is bigger on the inside? This Doctor Who “statement” necklace, that’s what. Or as I like to call it, the “OctoTARDIS” or “Doctor Cthulu”.


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Japanese toilet company Toto has a bike that runs on poop. If you want to save on fuel and produce your own fuel instead, this is the bike for you. The toilet you see there is just decorative, but the engine does run on poop.

It’s called the Neo and it took three years of research, development and design. It is basically a 250cc trike, with a built-in toilet for a seat. However, I was just kidding about you contributing to the fuel supply, which is actually purified and compressed livestock waste. So it still runs on poop – just not yours.

The bio-gas that it uses comes from the Shika-oi, in Hokkaido where waste and household water are converted to methane gas via fermentation. The methane gas is then converted to bio-gas by purifying. The bio-gas is what ends up in the bike, so there’s no actual manure anywhere, but it’s a fun design that gets the word out about alternative energy.

[via Neatorama]

Jim Lee is one of the most famous comic book artist and writers of my generation. From his breakout work with the X-Men books, co-founding Image Comics and now working at DC Comics, Lee is also certainly one of the most important figures in the comic book industry. And for $25,000 (USD), this highly talented big shot will go to your house and paint your wall. Or whichever wall you want.

Lee won’t see a penny of your money though. He’s offering it as a reward for DC Entertainment’s Indiegogo fundraiser, We Can Be Heroes. To celebrate Superman’s 75th anniversary, DC is raising funds to help alleviate hunger in the Horn of Africa. They are offering various rewards, from digital copies of Superman comics to paperbacks signed by their respective writers or artists. There’s even a Superman-themed bedroom set. The biggest reward of course, is the aforementioned Jim Lee mural. That’s like hiring Mark Zuckerberg to write your Computer Science project. Or me to sleep on your bed.

So auction off your old comics and head to Indiegogo to donate. The proceeds will be split between the International Rescue Committee, Mercy Corps and Save the Children. As of this writing the fundraiser has raised about $55,000 with only 13 days left. That Jim Lee pledge will go a long way towards fulfilling their goal.

[via Bleeding Cool]