PopSci has a good vide round of the 2010 ToyFair… I like the laser-harp-type thing… Say the word “toy” to a techie, and his mind will think one thing: robots. But all infrared-loving, artificially-intelligent smart-toy-ogling tech-savvy aside, new toys can instill as much “ooh! shiny!” as even the hottest cellphone. And we’re not just talking […]
Thus was born the idea of the scratch guitar controllers.
I experimented with a bunch of materials trying to find a resistor with the properties I needed, including VHS tape, tin foil, nichrome wire and conductive thread, to name a
few, before I stumbled on conductive foam. The foam is normally used to ship delicate electronics & ICs because it prevents the buildup of static electricity. It costs just a few dollars per sheet. I used the 1/4″ thick variety and paid about $7 for enough to make more than a dozen guitars. Other materials include scrap MDF, old futon slats, empty plastic film canisters (free from any place that still develops film), metallic tape (from any hardware store) & speaker wire.
Our buddy Fra Fondi, of Hobby Media/Xtreme RC Cars, was at the Nuremberg Toy Fair last week. He sent us email with some of the things he was most excited about, including this Grossi 2-stroke, 3.5cc R/C car engine that’s water-cooled! Looks amazing. Grossi’s 1/8 Rally Buggy Racer, using this new engine, will be available […]
Ever wish you could plug any USB peripheral into your cell phone? Well, now you can, at least if you have an Android-based Droid phone.
Nomad of Static Painting produced these awesome Road-Warrior-meets-Toto mashup minis. The figures themselves are available from Studio Miniatures. As an encore, might I suggest The Wizard of Oz gang as characters in the HBO prison drama Oz? Or vice versa? [via Neatorama]
Architecture student Ryan McCaffrey made this amazing expanding model from a bunch of pine parallelepipeds with white duct tape hinges. [via Dude Craft]
This Transformeresque giant metal guardian, made largely of junked car parts, was reportedly built by a company called Transinvestservice (TIS) outside the city of Odessa in the Ukraine. There’s more pics over at English Russia. [via Neatorama]
