Mace wowed crowds at the Maker Faire with his dope glasses, sick rhymes and tycoon showers. Perhaps the last two were exaggerated but these glasses really are cool. The 20 x 6 matrix of LEDs are “driven by SPI from an integrated Arduino-compatible” board mounted on the right temple and powered by a Lithium-polymer battery mounted on the left temple. Charging and code downloading are done via USB. Swag is attained by wearing the glasses.

You can see more pictures of the shades on Mace’s Lytro profile. Mace said he’s planning to sell a kit of the glasses on his website once he’s polished the device; he seems to be having trouble with the hinges. He also said that if he can’t find a low cost solution he might turn to Kickstarter. It would be funny if Mr. West backed and filled up the fundraiser on his own.

[via Hack A Day & Reddit via MAKE]

Most of the Slinkies I see today aren’t the same. Being made from plastic, they don’t seem to walk down stairs as well. A geek with a real metal Slinky and an old ragged out treadmill decided to play with a simple, yet epic idea. He started the treadmill to rolling at an angle, and let the Slinky start walking and videoed the result.

Naturally, video ended up on YouTube with all the Slinky walking action. A few times the slinky appeared ready to jump off out of exhaustion, but the little metal guy kept on walking, and never gave up. Check out the video for yourself, and prepare to be mesmerized for the next 3+ minutes.

[via JWZ via BoingBoing]

The new Arcadie jumps into the iPhone arcade controller market with two key differences – one, it’s aiming for a reasonable price, and two, it skips Bluetooth, avoiding the battery drain for both iPhone and controller. It does this using a bit of “low tech” trickery, using a couple of pads and a series of wires which tap spots on the bottom of your gadget’s screen, rather than any sort of electronic connection. Clever – but I’m not sure how responsive or durable this setup will be.

The Arcadie looks like a miniature arcade cabinet, and comes complete with an 8-way joystick and a pair of buttons for your mashing pleasure. Just pop your iPhone or iPod Touch into the dock in the back of the Arcadie, flip it into place, and start playing. At this point, there are only a handful of games, but Zeon, the makers of the Arcadie say there will be “numerous games” from the App Store at launch for free. One thing to keep in mind is that the Arcadie intentionally shows only part of the iPhone’s screen, so games play in traditional arcade landscape orientation.

Looking on their website, there are at least six games planned – all of which are clones or similar to classic arcade games. I only wish that Apple would establish a standard API for third party controllers (at least up/down/left/right and buttons) – that way, all games could be compatible with all of these controllers. Oh well, I can dream, can’t I?

Zeon says they recently secured Apple approval, and will be releasing the Arcadie “very soon.” Pricing hasn’t been finalized, but they expect it to sell for just about £20/$30 (USD).

The game comes from artist Lee Moyer, designer Keith Baker, and sculptor Paul Komoda. The playing pieces look fantastic, Paul. They should since this game has been a work-in-progress for nearly 20 years. Now it is finally going to get real because their Kickstarter campaign was a success. (Though you still have about 2 weeks to get in on the action.)

This looks much better than all of those other lame Monopoly clones. Hopefully it will have been worth the wait. Supposedly it plays like a combination of Arkham Horror, with play elements of Munchkin thrown in.

[via io9 via Nerd Approved]

The tower reminds me more than a bit of the Washington Monument. The tower is larger at the base in the tip and uses supporting guide wires along the way to keep it from toppling over onto the crowds. The project used over 500,000 LEGO bricks when all was said and done.

Among the builders were 4000 local kids conscribed into LEGO slave labor. By that, I mean the children won a contest and were allowed to help build the massive tower. Don’t expect to see LEGO release this tower as an off-the-shelf kit any time soon.

[via Huffingtonpost]

What you’re looking at here is the Bioshock Mr. Potato Head – called Potato Daddy, or as I like to call him Mr. Bubbles Head.

This crazy creation is the work of one Ginger Troll, and is the perfect mashup between Bioshock’s Big Daddy and Mr. Potato Head.

I love how he still has the googley eyeballs from Mr. Potato Head, but wields that nasty killer drill. From the looks of things he’s even a little bigger than this Bouncer, so maybe he could take him on in a fight. Er, maybe not.

Check out more pics of Mr. Bubbles Head over on Ginger Troll’s Flickr stream.

[via Kotaku via Nerd Approved]

The “invention kit” comes with a circuit board, a bunch of alligator clips and a USB cable. All you have to do is connect the MaKey MaKey board to a computer, then attach the alligator clips to the object that you want to use as a keypad and you’re good to go. Your computer will just think that you have a USB keyboard connected. It’s like the Old Spice commercial made real: your bananas are now keyboards!

How awesome is that?! The rest of the world has already gone on record with a resounding “Hell, yeah that’s awesome!”, because as of this writing the MaKey MaKey Kickstarter fundraiser has gathered more than 6 times its original goal amount of $25,000 (USD). You can be one of the first to own a MaKey MaKey kit by pledging at least $35 (USD) to the fundraiser.

[via Engadget]

What I love about this watch is that they managed to capture the TARDIS design so perfectly, while still retaining its functionality as a watch. The strap is blue of course, with a nice “Police Box” detail near the clasp and the watch face is the white design on the TARDIS door proclaiming that it is free for use of the public.

I think they have hit a homerun with this one and it isn’t super expensive either, at just $49.99(USD). You can find it at Entertainment Earth. It is available for pre-order now and it will come in August. Best Doctor Who watch ever!

[via Geek Alerts]

The whole thing is chrome plated using a “six-layer chrome plating” technique to reduce the signs of aging and degradation. It looks like the bidding for this thing starts at 900,000 yen (~$11,000 USD), though there are no bids yet. Does anyone care to guess how much it will sell for?

[via Obvious Winner]

As a matter of fact, we mentioned back in March that LEGO was giving away a free limited-edition minifig Avengers movie poster to 2 million people. LEGO isn’t clear on how many of the free Hulk minifigs it will be giving away though. It does say “limited-edition,” but that could mean 2000 or 2 million for all we know.

The Hulk minifig is automatically added to your cart if you purchase $50 worth of merchandise from LEGO online or in-store while supplies last.

That computer is almost 30 years old. If not for this mod, it would be a useless paperweight. It is proof that by thinking out of the box, we can use some of our old gadgets and rescue them from obsolescence, while doing some cool things.

[via Hack A Day via Geekosystem]

The car is the Porsche 918 Spyder and this sexy beast is a plug-in hybrid. The car uses a traditional four-liter V8 engine producing 500 hp along with a pair of electric motors. The V8 engine propels the back wheels, while each of the front wheels gets its own electric motor making for an all wheel drive vehicle. The car is capable of using the electric power alone to propel itself up to 94 mph. The 918 pushes out an incredible 770 horsepowere when the V8 and electric engines are combined, and consumes 3 liters of fuel for every 100 km driven. Top speed is 199 mph and it can hit 60 mph in 3.1 seconds.

It’s not clear how long the car can drive on electric power alone, but it apparently gets 78 mpg on the EU test cycle. The car you see in the picture here is a prototype wearing black and white camouflage, reminiscent of Porsche 917 racecars from the past. Of course, all of this comes at a price – the 918 Spyder hybrid is expected to sell for $845,000 (USD) when it’s released by the end of 2013.

[via Autoblog Green]

He doesn’t actually fly, but this newly available import from Sanei comes in two sizes, and will look great hanging out on your couch next to you as you play your favorite Super Mario game on your Nintendo console. I’ll let you in on a little secret, though. He’ll sit there and tolerate it while you play Modern Warfare 3 or even Skyrim if that’s your game of choice. Mario’s a pretty flexible guy.

If you want a plush Tanooki Mario to be a couch potato with you, head on over to NCSX, where you can order him in small for $39.90 and in medium for $58.90. Sorry, I have no idea how big “small” or “medium” is.

That’s because this replica of the Colonial Marines’ Smartgun is impeccable – and huge. This massive weapon is a full-scale reproduction of the one used in Aliens. This thing is not only huge, but it’s got to weigh a ton, as its made out of aluminum, resin and steel. It’s a real masterpiece of prop-building, and it’s ready to take on whatever nasty alien you can throw at it.

This custom-made replica pulse rifle comes from Movie Guns Inc. over on Etsy, and is just one of the many awesome replicas they’ve made of classic movie weapons. Chances are that you won’t be able to afford the $2700(USD) price tag on the Smartgun replica, but if you love Aliens, you might want to check out their M41-A pulse rifle replica, which sells for “just” $1795.

If you or someone in your house is a fan of kung fu movies in the cheesy sound effects that go along with them, they need the Dragon Grip that’s on Kickstarter now.

This toy looks like the handle from a joystick and has a trigger and a D-pad on top. When someone does the kung fu moves while pressing the trigger the Dragon Grip makes sounds automatically.

The device goes along with a comic book called Legend City. If you want one of these toys, you’ll need to pledge $25(USD) or more. If you want to grip and the comic book, you’ll need to cough up $32 or more. The expected delivery on the Dragon Grip is December, assuming the project gets enough pledges to fund it.

This custom x-wing fighter/batjet was created by LEGO mastermind Kevin Ryhal (aka M<0><0>DSWIM). Now I can only imagine what the Joker’s TIE Fighter might look like. As you might imagine, Batman’s story has changed just a little bit. “After Bruce Skywalker’s aunt and uncle are killed by the evil Darth Joker, he learns the ways of the Force and becomes the Bat Knight, vowing to fight crime across the galaxy and defeat the evil Empire!”

That is a pretty sweet LEGO ride. I think the Astromech should have been done up in Robin’s colors though. Great custom ship!

[via IT LEGO via Obvious Winner]

Youtuber WorldScott lined up a string of 100 red balloons held down with specially modified glasses of water to keep them from blowing away as balloons pop around them. Once the 100 balloons were set up, the laser was switched on and the beam was fired through what appears to be some sort of magnifying glass. The balloons pop surprisingly quickly, considering how far away some of them are.

The laser used is a Spyder III Krypton in the 750mW – 1000mW power range. The last balloon definitely needed the longest time to explode, but it did eventually go. The video has been submitted to the Guinness Book of World Records to see if it is in fact a world record. Record or not, it was certainly cool. Be sure to check out the video and see it for yourself.

Using an Arduino UNO, a WiFly Shield, a GoPro Hero 2, a three-axis accelerometer and lots of other bits and bobs that do important stuff, Kelly was able to turn a Tamiya Mini M05 R/C car into an analog arcade racer. The toy car connects to its base station via Wi-Fi, allowing it to be controlled wirelessly via a variety of controllers (including a steering wheel) and in return send a live first-person – first-toy car? – view as well as force feedback. He can even set it so that the camera pans in sync with the steering.

Want to know how to make your own Arduino WiFly Mini? You’re in luck: Kelly has a staggeringly comprehensive how-to on his website that is longer than the entire Harry Potter series. It was a compelling read. I couldn’t put it down. I like the part where Kelly realized he should be putting a series of instructions into one packet instead of sending packets with each instruction so the method more greatly resembles a PPM stream.

[via Make:]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Pegy1ZjDO8I#!

The motion is a bit eerie (but awesome!) and makes you look to the sky to see if Skynet is orbiting above your house. This is the eighth revision of the Transformer robot, so it’s clear that Kenji has been working on perfecting it for years.

[via Plastic Pals via Geek]

The parts don’t move using gears or motors, but closer to the way the actual Sopwiths were controlled – with string. How is that for accuracy? You have to love details like that. The LEGO Sopwith Camel will arrive in June for $99.99(USD).

[via Geekosystem]