Toys and Games

Hollow spy nickel conceals Micro SD card

Hollow spy nickel conceals Micro SD card

Brian Dereu and his family have a thriving cottage industry machining these pocket concealments from real currency and selling them online. I have one of their MicroNickels, shown above, and it may well be the coolest thing I have ever owned. It’s sized perfectly to conceal a Micro SD card, and when assembled it really is indistinguishable from a regular nickel. So, you know, just don’t lose it.

Lego NXT R/C boat

Lego NXT R/C boat

Our go-to guy for all things R/C, Fra Fondi, of Hobby Media/Xtreme RC Cars, sent us this video for an awesome Lego NXT-controlled boat. It has an NXT Brick MCU onboard and is controlled by a mobile phone via Bluetooth. It has a range of about 50 meters in clear line of sight. A few […]

Lego ship in a glass bottle

Lego ship in a glass bottle

Not to be confused with this Lego ship in a Lego bottle. Something very like this stunt has actually been on my personal to-do list for about six months now (well, I was gonna build a Lego spaceship in a glass bottle), but I kept putting it off. “Jeremy Moody built the first Lego ship inside a bottle!” is the headline over at Brothers Brick. Oh, that stings! [Thanks, Rachel!]

Ceramic seed grenade

Ceramic seed grenade

At almost $15 US apiece, plus shipping from the UK, you won’t catch me smashing too many of these seed-laden ceramic pineapples in the near future. Give me a half-dozen at that price, packed in hay inside a roughly-stenciled wooden crate (“HAND GRENADE, FLOWER SEED, 6CT, NOT FOR EXPORT”), and we’ll talk. Still, pretty appealing concept–you got the flower power, the military cool factor, and the visceral appeal of smashing a ceramic pot all rolled into one.

Lasercut chess set

Lasercut chess set

This excellent chess set definitely wins points for beauty. My dad taught me how to make, create, design, build, program, and solder from a young age. This year I finally remembered that parents don’t like their children to buy them expensive things, they like their children to build them things. And you could end up […]

Original Mars Attacks art in Makers Market

Original Mars Attacks art in Makers Market

Aw, man, this is almost too good to be true: Makers Market seller John Doffing, of Philadelphia, PA, has scored a license to reprint every card in Topps’ famous 1962 trading card series Mars Attacks. John’s company, LTL Prints, has a novel full-color print-on-demand process using environmentally friendly inks, at 1440 dpi, on a 10 mil self-adhesive “fabric paper” substrate that can be removed and repositioned over and over again. He’ll sell you any card in the series at your choice of six sizes ranging from one foot to six feet on the long edge, with prices starting at $15. He’s also selling complete sets at a steep discount over the per-print price.