On the latest episode of The Ben Heck Show, the famous modder made a spring-loaded container for Hot Pockets that mounts onto the Charge-and-Play port of an Xbox 360 controller. You could do what he did in the beginning and just duct tape your food on your controller, but this ridiculous invention has one practical feature – its base can be raised so that you can still reach the food easily even as it decreases in height without taking your hands off of the controller.

Initially, Ben tried to make the base electrically-powered by using parts from a Charge-and-Play adapter. But the adapter didn’t provide enough power to do the job, so he settled with the spring-loaded mechanism instead. You can skip to about 13:00 in the video to see the final product:

Combine this with a beer hat and you’re good to go. Go be a personification of the perils of convenience.

[Ben Heck Show via Kotaku]

I say “most of” because Heck designed the main components of the system and left it purposefully unfinished to allow the viewer who wins the device in a contest to complete the works. If I won, I would never get the thing to work correctly. Heck gutted an old CD carousel and has the enclosure and software for the system written already. I’m not sure what that would leave the user to finish.

The completed project will hold multiple video games and automatically swap the titles for you using a remote. Apparently, the device has some sort of mechanism to slip the discs into the Xbox 360 as well. I’d really like to see the finished product work to get an idea what all this thing entails.

To sum up the episode, Heck took a button-less hand sanitizer and added motion sensors, a speaker for an audio reminder and indicator lights. As I mentioned the modded sanitizer also logs events, so if the audio cue and the lights don’t convince hospital personnel to wash, their boss will. The man in the argyle sweater is Arun Mathews, the physician who gave Ben Heck the idea for the project. I heartily recommend that you watch the whole show, as jargon-filled as it is, but if you’re pressed for time, you can skip to about 15 minutes in to see the final product in action.

I wonder if using a Kinect would have been overkill for this project. Come to think of it, I’ve never heard of Heck come up with any Kinect hacks or mods. Someone send that as an idea for his next show. I have to work.

[The Ben Heck Show via 7 Gadgets]

Ben has dedicated Episode 14 of his online show to the construction of the laptop. And without further ado, here’s the full 22-minute+ episode, titled That 70s Xbox with the full build and reveal.

Atari will be giving away this laptop, although they haven’t given away the contest details yet. Ben Heck should include a couple of his Atari 360 controllers with the laptop to complete the theme.

[Ben Heck via Slash Gear]

Ben Heck has come up with a simple way to power any device that gets its juice from a microUSB cable. What he does is show you how to hack a hand-cranked flashlight and a microUSB charger together to allow you to power mobile gadgets. Granted, it’s going to take a lot of cranking to churn out enough energy to charge your phone for very long. However, if you’re really wanting to “rough it” out there, then you shouldn’t exactly be using your phone that much anyway.

View the entire build on The Ben Heck Show below:

[via SlashGear]

The “ruggedized” PS3 is encased in a Pelican Storm case. There’s a built-in 22″ LCD, speakers, a TV tuner, network switcher and even space for storage.

Watch Ben Heck’s online show for more info on how he built the mod. Here’s where it gets interesting though: Engadget says that the couple who commissioned the mod have started their own console modding company, Rugged Outdoor Gaming Units, Etc (R.O.G.U.E.). R.O.G.U.E. will sell PeliStations, which are – guess what – PS3s encased in Pelican cases, much like the mod that they ordered. One hopes that they asked for Ben Heck’s blessing before founding a business based on his creation.

If any of you have ever tried to use your laptop on the tray table of an airplane, you know how irritating it can be to get the screen angle to work where you can comfortably view it.

Ben’s simple, yet clever design lets you float the screen above the keyboard so you can view the display at a more comfortable angle, while still being able to type. Check it out in action in the video below…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Of course, you need to be able to touch-type in order to use the thing, but overall, I think it’s a design that deserves to be incorporated into a production laptop PC.

[via Ben Heck]

By rigging up a chest-mounted LCD screen and a back-mounted CCD camera, he’s created this Portal-inspired t-shirt. Yep, you can see right through Ben’s mid-section, clear through to his Xbox 360 Slim portable and all his other cool casemods.

Check out the entire, gory build process in the latest episode of The Ben Heck Show, in the video clip below…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Best of all, you can win this great Portal shirt for yourself. Just drop by Ben Heck’s Contest page here.

The new Xbox 360 Slim portable really is slimmer than his earlier attempts, measuring 1.5″ narrower and 1″ shallower than the previous models. He’s also got a built in power supply and it runs super-quiet thanks to the inclusion of the 360 Slim’s new cooling fan. The portable sports a 17″ widescreen display, running at 720p resolution, and has a set of touch-sensitive power and eject buttons on the top.

Here’s a video of Ben’s portable 360 Slim in action…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Since Ben has been covering the build of the laptop over the course of the first 6 episodes of his eponymous The Ben Heck Show, he’ll also be giving this one away in a contest, so stay tuned to the show to find out how you can win. He’s also working on a couple more that he’ll be selling if you’ve got the cash on hand, and just want to skip the whole contest bit.

[via Ben Heck Blog]

Okay, it’s just an Internet TV show, and pretty much anyone can have one of those, but Ben is cool, and we’re excited for his new show.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

In the pilot eposide, Ben will be showing off a custom modded controller he built for a disabled gamer. In subsequent shows, Ben will be highlighting more cool mods, providing pointers for doing your own mods, and even accepting ideas for future builds.

Ben plans on taking to the tubes next Monday, 9/13 with his first episode. Be sure to check out Ben’s site for more deets.

But before you rummage through your sketches and doodles, know that Ben Heck does have some rules for his contest. First of all, he won’t build bombs, so if you’re a terrorist, sorry, and also please don’t drop by our blog again. Okay Ben Heck didn’t actually say that but I bet it’s an unspoken rule of his. His real first rule is: the cost of the parts must not exceed $500 (USD). Second, he will prioritize projects of the following nature: “Useful household items / stuff that needs inventing. Projects to help those in need, such as videogame controllers for the disabled or other accessibility items. Weird stuff that I don’t usually work with (interesting challenges).”

On the other hand, Ben Heck will not entertain projects that are similar to what he’s done in the past – forget about owning an Xbox 360 +Kinect laptop. He also won’t touch mod chips or do software hacks, and he won’t create what he calls all-in-one systems, “such as a PS3 mixed with a Wii.” I presume those three rules just rendered most of your ideas invalid. But that only means you’re free to think of new ideas. When you’ve got a good one, go to Ben Heck’s project submission page and pray to the machine gods that your wish will be granted.

[via Ben Heck's blog]

His latest take on the portable PS3 Slim incorporates many of the design elements of the first one, with some subtle changes. The biggest improvement is the detachable HDMI cable for the laptop’s 17-inch flat screen so he can plug it into an external monitor too. There’s also a headphone jack for playing games and Blu-rays in private.

I also prefer the black and blue paint job on this one, instead of the starkness of the original. I mean really, a white and grey PS3 Slim? An Xbox 360 or a Wii I could understand, of course.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can check out more pics and details of the new PS3 Slim Laptop (Mark II) over at Ben’s site.

Why are you still reading this? Okay even if you’re not familiar with Ben Heck and what he does, you can plainly see that this is a PS3 packed and a 17″ widescreen LCD, all in one case that you can lug around. That shot above is from Ben Heck himself; here’s the one on auction:

And here’s the seller, altfeldtoy, who says that he won the PS3 Slim laptop “in a giveaway at a local business.” You live in an awesome neighborhood, altfeldtoy.

Altfeldtoy is selling it because he’s not into PS3 gaming, which is as good a reason as any, especially since the current bid for the laptop is $1,025 (USD), with 5 days to go before bidding ends. Not bad for something which cost him absolutely nothing. Go to eBay and bid on it! Screw 2010! Savings are for wusses!

[via gameSniped]

But I’m really curious: how are you going to keep the part of your palm underneath your thumbs from touching those buttons? Or is that the point of this mod – to enable the customer to press all 4 shoulder palm buttons at all times? I got my own controller and realized that okay if I placed my thumbs over the analog sticks, my palms wouldn’t be mashing the buttons. But what game would I be able to play decently with that grip? Super Rub-a-Dub? And even if the buttons only worked if you pressed on them hard enough, you’d have to take your thumbs off the other buttons to press them, a dilemma that is remedied by… the default layout of the controller. Ben Heck, I know you’re talented and all, but Beyonce had one of the best videos of all time.

…

Seriously though, I must be missing something here dammit. What is the logic behind this mod?

This is the third revision of the Atari 800 laptop that Ben has built, and this one captures the spirit of the original 8-bit machine the best. I have a special place in my heart for the 800, as it’s really the first “serious” computer I had when I was growing up. Sure, I got to play with an Apple ][ for a while around the same time, but the first code I ever wrote was in good old Atari BASIC.

The design of the console is very reminiscent of the classic 800, complete with that dirty beige case color, and a real Atari 800 clicky keyboard. Check out the wonderful details like the front-mounted cartridge slot, and the flat Reset/Start/Select/Option buttons in their original hues.

While the hardware isn't actually from an original Atari 800 (it's an XEGS motherboard), it still looks like an 800 and plays all the original games, so that's good enough for me. The machine has also done away with the need for storing programs on cassette tape or floppy disk by getting itself a nice little 2.5" PATA hard drive under the hood. Heck managed to work that magic using a custom-programmed MyIDE circuit. The luggable system even owes a nod to Nintendo. That's because it's power supply came from a Gamecube. Go figure.

The pop-up angled keyboard is a really nice touch that makes it much more like the original 800 too.

Here's the 800 laptop in action, playing Lucasfilm Games' 1984 classic Ballblazer, one of my favorite 8-bit games of all time:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

And how about a little Buck Rogers for those of you into that scene:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Want to get one for yourself, or just want to see how he built it? Head on over to Ben’s website for more details.

Pax-man’s got a huge forehead. Anyway as you can see Ben Heck’s put various Bill Paxton references on the machine – Bill Paxton the car dealer from True Lies, the moon to signify Apollo 13, and of course the Big Love wives. The game’s mechanics will also be Paxtonized: “…in “True Lies” mode, you’ll need to shoot combos and multipliers to I guess get into Jamie Lee Curtis’ pants.” Other modes will be based on Titanic, Aliens and Twister.

In the end, Ben Heck says that this pet project is all about “building something very complicated from scratch, so the engineering is the real star.” That, and getting into Jamie Lee Curtis’ pants. Check out the full story at Ben Heck’s blog.

The Xbox 360 Portable – Revision 5 gives the luggable gaming system a svelte new shell, complete with a 17-inch widescreen LCD monitor, running at 720p resolution. This latest version improves upon Ben’s previous 360 laptops by adding better ventilation, and adds an Ethernet port for wired network access. The previous models only had Wi-Fi, but for the ultimate in network speed, nothing beats a hardwired connection, IMHO.

The design of the latest revision includes a flush-mounted DVD drawer, and manages to keep the familiar Xbox 360 light ring intact, mounted into the surface of the console, alongside the console’s control buttons and flanked by a pair of tiny stereo speakers. Here’s a pic of the laptop spilling its guts so you can see how it was built.

But you want to see the Xbox 360 portable in action, don’t you? Ask and ye shall receive. Ben has been kind enough to post a video clip of his handiwork in action here:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

[via Ben Heck's Blog]

Heckendorn said that he was already working on a portable Commodore 64 back in 2006, but then he decided to re-do the whole thing. His goal was to make the laptop look like it was from the 80s, and I think everyone will agree with me when I say that he succeeded, because, as the modder himself said, “It just looks so beautifully ugly it’s great, like it came out of a time machine from an alternate reality 80’s where this existed.”

It’s not just the appearance of the laptop that’s retro because Ben Heck stuffed a C64C motherboard inside the laptop, as well as a Commodore 64 keyboard. Then he used a device called a 1541-III DTV that accepts SD cards instead of floppy disks for storage. The laptop is plugged into a semi-retro Gamecube power supply.

Heckendorn added a tiny LCD screen at the bottom of the laptop just for kicks, although he said that it also serves an aesthetic function as it fills up the empty space below the keyboard and makes the layout symmetrical to compensate for the irregular shape of the keyboard.

Although he can use the SD card to play games or use programs on the brand new old machine, Heck still added a cartridge slot at the bottom of the laptop. Here’s a video of the C64 laptop in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can check out Heckendorn’s site for more pics and vids of his latest Frankenmod.

Heckendorn says that it’s a prize for THQ’s Darksiders game. A prize for winning what exactly he doesn’t say, but I already know that I’m not ever going to own one of these so I don’t care. Here are a couple more shots of the Joe Madureira art on the shell:

That’s the Horseman WAR and his phantom steed RUIN on the bottom half of the laptop. In Darksiders players will control WAR as he is sent to find out why the Apocalypse arrived prematurely  as well as search for your mates, the three other Horsemen. Awesome plot. Not if you’re a mere mortal.

There’s WAR again, in Joe Mad’s bulky-anime style. As always, the Heck posted a detailed walkthrough of the creation of the Darksiders Xbox 360 laptop for THQ. Let’s just call it the Boxtop 360, Darksiders edition.

Wonder who’s stronger, the God of War or WAR itself?

With the help of electrical tape, PVC pipe, and a little rubber tubing, Ben Heck set up a breath-controlled workaround for the drum set’s kick pedal. The better to keep your hands free for what’s important: playing the drums.

The entire process has been documented–even down to tips for dealing with cuts sustained in the process–so that you can try this one at home. And Rock Band fans have a reason to rejoice: it’s apparently easier to pull this off with the Rock Band kit.

[BenHeck.com via hackaday]