Fun & Games

The latest DIY ideas, techniques and tools for bikes, rockets, R/C vehicles, toys and other diversions.

Tactile gaming vest lets you feel the pew pew pew

Tactile gaming vest lets you feel the pew pew pew

Roboticist Saurabh Palan, a graduate student at the University of Pennsylvania, just hipped us to his “Tactile Gaming Vest” project. The vest contains solenoids, rumble-packs, and Peltier heating elements, and is designed to provide haptic feedback in first-person shooters. Get shot with a pistol, get a kick in the chest from a solenoid. Was it a laser? Add some local heat from the Peltiers. Vibration from the rumble-packs can be used to simulate explosions or slashing attacks. There’s more info at Palan’s personal site, iRoboticist.com. Double win for scoring that URL.

Getting to know “foamies”

One of the things we talk about in the new issue of MAKE, in my “Remote Control State of the Art” piece, is foamies, R/C planes made out of foam building material, often carved from blueboard insulation foam. They have getting started info, videos of foamies in action, project articles, and they even sell plans […]

Featured Maker:  Shing Yin Khor

Featured Maker: Shing Yin Khor

Shing Yin Khor is a sculptor and illustrator inspired by monsters, tentacles, mediocre science fiction movies, bikes, Dungeons and Dragons, and really adorable cats. Educated as a theatrical scenic designer and prop maker, and employed in the technology field, [I] now synthesize my eclectic skill set into accessible and affordable art ranging from desktop monster sculptures to walk-in spacepods installed at Burning Man.

Free promotional plastic resin sampler puzzle

Free promotional plastic resin sampler puzzle

I don’t often blog promotional giveaways, but this one is pretty sweet: Minnesota’s Proto Labs offers injection molding in a bunch of different plastics. The really cool part is, if you’re in North America and you register at their site, they’ll send you a free 4x4x4 unit polycube puzzle, with nine pieces, each molded in a different color and from a different polymer resin. There’s green HDPE, white polypropylene, mauve ABS, clear polycarbonate, yellow polycarbonate/ABS blend, orange polyoxymethylene, red polyester, blue nylon, and black glass-filled nylon. And purple horseshoes! I already snagged mine!