Technabob » blocks

Cubelets: Amazing Robotic Building Blocks

Conner Flynn — Thu, 05 Jan 2012 14:00:50 +0000

These things look awesome. What you have here are building blocks that let you create cool robots by connecting sensors, motors, and feedback devices. The robots can even interact with the world around them. You won’t be building any kind of self-aware sentient being with these playthings, but your creation will be impressive as you “build with nature in mind”.

Cubelets snap together to form robots that can move, turn, detect or emit light or sound, as well as motion or temperature, they can also perform simple logic to determine what adjacent blocks should do. The blocks hold together magnetically, and automatically know what to do without any programming or wiring needed. At this point, there are 15 different Cubelet components you can work with, with more on the way.

The Cubelets kit is available from ModRobotics and you can pre-order it for $160 (USD). For that price, you get six Cubelets, two sensors, two “action” blocks, and two “brains” with a battery pack. The large kit costs $520 and includes 20 pieces. They’re designed for kids eight and up and run on rechargeable batteries. (Charger sold separately for $15.)

Sure they’re expensive, but how else are you going to build your robot cube by cube? The possibilities are pretty endless. Once the price comes down and more blocks become available, I’d love to see what can be accomplished.

[via TechCrunch]

Forget ABC Blocks, the Wooden iPhone is for Modern Toddlers

Conner Flynn — Wed, 07 Dec 2011 12:15:14 +0000

Kids today. They don’t want old-fashioned wood blocks with ABCs and numbers on them. Who wants to learn while you are drooling all over yourself and pooping your diaper? Babies want an iPhone 4S (or an iPad 2). In fact, if they had the strength and coordination, they would snatch yours from your clammy hands and knock you out while they played with it.

Since they can’t, and since iPhones are too expensive for babies, here’s the perfect gift. This wooden iPhone, created by Kyle Bean and Thomas Forsyth. Not that you can buy one at this point. Sadly this is just a cool design – appearing on the cover of the December 2011 issue of Computer Arts magazine. Though I hope it becomes a real toy. Each of the blocks represents an app. How cool is that?

Really, this is a cool toy for the adults, who will allow the kids to play with it from time-to-time. Sure it looks all clean and awesome now. but once you give it to your little ankle-weight, it will soon be covered in drool and snot, and that beautiful wood will be all dinged and dented up with toothmarks. Kids. This is why we can’t have anything nice.

Tomodachi Blocks: for Brady Bunch Convos, Impromptu Hollywood Squares Games

Conner Flynn — Fri, 02 Sep 2011 11:40:06 +0000

The Tomodachi Block system is an interesting concept that allows you to stay connected with friends by using wooden blocks that act as tiny wooden displays. Remember the intro to the Brady Bunch where they are all in a grid and yet are seemingly interacting with each other? That could happen for real with this concept.

They come from the mind of Aya Shimada. When multiple Tomodachi Blocks of your friends are stacked or close together, you can have a group conversation. Each block is dedicated to one of your friends and features a speaker and a small screen. Sensors know when blocks are combined or stacked and so they can interact accordingly. Looks like this concept also uses your webcam as a block to connect you to your friends in the same way.

I wish that we could buy these today, but alas, it is just a concept for the moment. One that we hope will arrive on the market when it becomes possible to create.

[via Yanko Design]

Tetris Sticky Notes: Post-it Puzzlers

Technabob — Wed, 08 Jun 2011 02:01:52 +0000

Retro gamers, here’s a great way to take notes, while at the same time playing a round of Tetris. These sticky notes come in Tetris-inspired shapes, letting you create puzzles as you write. Although I’m not sure completing a row of these actually makes them disappear from your wall.

The note pads are officially being sold as “Block Notes,” presumably so as not to offend the makers of Tetris or Post-It® notes – or at least to avoid the ire of their lawyers. Either way, I’m still gonna call them Tetris Post-Its®, because that’s what they are to me.

They come in sets of 8 pads for £7.50 (~$12 USD) , including a variety of block shapes and colors, courtesy of our friends over at SUCK UK.

[via all things cool via Colossal Art & Design]

Jinha Lee’S Bloxels: Pixels Escape From the Screen

Range — Thu, 24 Dec 2009 03:38:12 +0000

What if the pixels from your screen escaped and found themselves wandering around the real world? They’d look like these aptly named Bloxels!

Designer Jinha Lee came up with this concept while he thought about his monitor. These small devices are supposed to be the prototype of a new type of display, on which Lee began working on in Tokyo while at university.

His design uses a bunch of modules that consist of translucent cubes which are able to emit a glow that corresponds to one that is transmitted to it. Each Bloxel is influenced by the ones around it. The image that’s displayed transforms as the Bloxels are moved around.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

This type of display is supposed to be used for multimedia artwork or educational purposes, but I think that they make some funky lights as well. You can find out more about Bloxels over on Lee’s website.

[via Designboom]

Cube Works Rubik’s Cube Portraits: Geeky and Classy

Lambert Varias — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 12:43:27 +0000

Before I go on, let’s get it out of the way. Yes, Rubik’s Cube art is nothing new, and in all likelihood Nick Hall and the rest of the Cube Works team are following on the footsteps of earlier Rubik’s Cubists. But that doesn’t make Cube Works’ pieces any less beautiful.

Thinking of how hard and complex something must have been to create – whether it’s a song, a bridge, or in this case a portrait – makes me appreciate it more, and with Rubik’s Cube portraits the arduousness of the process is just so apparent that upon looking at these pieces for the first time I was simultaneously thinking of how nice they look and of how frickin’ maddening they must have been to create.

If you’d like to commission Cube Works, contact Josh Chalom via e-mail. They’re willing to make portraits based on images submitted by clients, so if you want to immortalize yourself in a geeky way, now’s your chance. Check out their website for more portraits.

[via freshome and Vidafine]

Rubik’s Cube Pixel Art: the Ultimate Geek Art Form

Technabob — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:42:33 +0000

What do you get when you’ve got a crapload of Rubik’s cubes lying around the house, and some serious artistic talent? You make some major pixel art, that’s what.

These Rubik’s pixel portraits by Irish artist John Quigley are truly mind-boggling. Not only did he have to map out the precise pixel positions for each cube in these creations, he had to rotate the sides of each cube into exactly the correct color scheme to make it all work. To put it all in perspective, the Space Invaders scene above required a whopping 1,330 cubes.

And while Sonic only took 784 cubes to get his spiky blue hairdo, he’s still cool in my book. Not all of John’s creations require hundreds or even thousands of cubes either. Check out this Pac-Man scene, created from just 102 cubes – it still gets the point across just fine.

And Mario is no less fun, even though he only consumed 24 Rubik’s Cubes.

For obvious reasons, I’m drawn to his retro video game pixel creations, but I couldn’t leave you guys without showing you John’s unbelievable 2,622 cube portrait of Barack Obama.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Be sure to check out all of John’s amazing Rubik’s Cube creations over at the Neo-literal Cubist’s flickr page. He can also solve a Rubik’s Cube in 44 seconds.

Tetris’D Turns Tetris Into a Platformer

Technabob — Sun, 18 Oct 2009 03:12:46 +0000

When most of us think of Tetris, we think of puzzle games. But this new variant of the classic brick-stacking puzzler isn’t about that. You see, Tetris’D is a platform game. Huh, wha?

The objective of Kobra Editing’s little Flash game Tetris’D is simple. Blocks fall from the sky just like they do in the original ‘tris, except instead of controlling the blocks, you move a little stick-figure dude who’s about to be crushed by them-thar falling blocks. You can move and jump over bricks, and with enough practice, you can even wall jump while you’re moving through the air. All you’ve got to do is stay alive without being smooshed or falling off of the platform. But don’t let the simple premise fool you. This game will seriously kick your ass when you first pick it up.

Wanna give a shot? Jump on over to StickPage and get to some Tetris’D platform’n now’n. While you’re over there, be sure to check out Kobra’s accompanying Tetris’d stick-figure animations for an added diversion.

[via DownloadSquad]

Tetris Machine: the Blocks Get Real

Technabob — Mon, 09 Mar 2009 11:56:51 +0000

This collaboration between UK mixed-media artist Chrissie MacDonald and photographer Dominic Lee envisions what Tetris might look like on some newfangled 3-dimensional computing platform that uses physical blocks to let you play the classic Russian puzzler.

The whole thing seems slightly impractical to me – with only that much height, and blocks that can rotate to any angle – I think the game would be over really quickly for me. For now I’ll stick to Topple.

[via Broccolicity]

Donkey Kong Jenga is Monkeylicious

Technabob — Fri, 22 Aug 2008 13:41:30 +0000

Remember the beginning of Donkey Kong? You know – the part where Kong climbs to the top of the building, stomps his feet, and the girders all fall diagonally into place? That’s sorta what this new version of Jenga reminds me of.

Shipping this September, Donkey Kong Jenga doesn’t monkey with the orignial Jenga block stacking and removing gameplay. But I couldn’t think of a better way to spice up those boring plain wood blocks that the regular version of the game comes with. Sure, it’s a few bucks more than standard Jenga, but put Mario and Donkey Kong on anything, and I’ll gladly pay a couple of extra bucks for it.

You can pre-order Donkey Kong Jenga over at Amazon for $24.99.

[via Kotaku]

Woodpixel: Create Your Own Pixel Art From Wood

Technabob — Wed, 06 Dec 2006 19:28:46 +0000

In the past I’ve written about these little plastic pixel block sets that let you build classic video game characters in 3D. Those sets always seemed a little cheap looking to me, so I’m excited about these new pixel blocks made entirely out of wood.

Each WoodPixel cube has a different shade of wood on each of its six sides, allowing you to create wood toned versions of your favorite pixel art. Sold in sets of 100 cubes and an accompanying 10 by 10 grid tray that holds your creations. The cubes measure 2cm (about 3/4″), and the tray is 26.5cm x 26.5cm (about 10″ x 10″), making this much more substantial than the plastic kits I’ve reported on before. No pricing information is available yet, but you can request pre-order information from orders@woodpixel.com.