The cabinet was built by Reddit contributor Echoobrain, and it has a full arcade quality joystick and buttons built in. The system offers Link and Mario details on the side, along with a Triforce on the front – and it’s crowned with a proper Nintendo logo of course. While the arcade controller is limited to single-player gaming, there is a hidden controller in the front drawer that lets you play 2-player games too.

Echoobrain doesn’t say much more about the build, but it’s pretty great in my opinion. The only thing better would be if it could play ALL Nintendo games, not just the SNES – but sometimes less is more, and it’s not like the SNES didn’t have a ton of great games. Echoobrain does mention that he might add a small MAME system inside the cabinet that he could toggle to for other arcade games down the road though.

[via Reddit]

As Rodney explains, this set is no joke. The 3,152 piece, $400 kit is an incredibly detailed 50 inch LEGO masterpiece. You need to set aside some serious time for this one. The instructions alone look like a phone book.

It even comes with a huge display tile that has statistics on the ship. To truly appreciate this build, check out all of their pics at the link below. The finished ship really is a sight to behold. Best of all two guys got to be kids again for a while.

[via Geeksaresexy]

This LEGO Death Star comes with 24 minifigs, including 6 which are exclusive to this set. This Death Star measures 16 inches tall by 16½ inches wide, and inside you’ll find many of the classic Empire rooms, from the Imperial conference chamber to the TIE Advanced hanger bay. There’s even a trash compactor, complete with Dianoga, the trash compactor monster. Bet you didn’t know that he had a name.

Despite all the pieces, this is one build that shouldn’t be too hard to put together, as you’ll have some nice photos an instructions to go along with it. The LEGO Death Star kit isn’t cheap though – it sells for $399.99 (USD) over at LEGO’s online shop and Amazon.

[via GeekAlerts]

Despite the enthralling title, staring at the cover itself doesn’t do this book the justice it deserves, so Xubor put together this little video to show you what you’ll be missing out on if you don’t run out and buy the book.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Ok, I’m convinced. With the book in hand – assuming you have ample LEGO bricks – you’ll be able to create a fully-automatic submachine gun, a semi-automatic pistol, and a slide-action crossbow pistol among other great LEGO weapons.

You can grab a copy of Badass LEGO Guns over at Amazon for about $18 (USD).

[via You Bent My Wookie]

Some geeks went on a factory tour at the Leica works and watched an M9 get build from the ground up to the finished product. The extensive hand-building process is pretty cool and spans about 17 minutes. If you have always wondered what goes into the construction of a camera that costs that much, now is your chance to see.

The videos are broken into two parts and you can watch them both here:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I fully expected a camera that costs that much to be assembled by topless supermodels or something, but they just built in a plain clean room by people wearing hair nets.

[via A Continuous Lean]

The robot kit is developed by RoMeLa at Virginia Tech with help by Purdue University, the University of Pennsylvania, and Robotis Co. The line of bots have been in development since 2004. The open source design is intended to encourage geeks to toy with the hardware and software to create their own mods. There are numerous software implementations for the kit with C++, Python, LabVIEW, MATLAB, and more.

CAD files are available publically for the design and construction of the bot. The thing is rumored to cost about $8,000 (USD) to build which is about half the price of competitive products on the market. The bot is 17.9″ tall, weighs 2.8kg, and has 20 degrees of freedom. Its controller is an Atom Z530 processor with 1GB of RAM, 4GB of storage, and it can run Linux, XP, or Windows 7.

[via I, Bioloid via Plastic Pals]

This incredibly small LEGO chess set was created by Flickr user Akunthita. It measures 12 × 12 studs, which is about a 3″ square. There are even these micro-drawers which are able to hold all of the chess pieces. Cool.

So if you love playing chess, it should be pretty easy to swipe Akunthita’s idea and make your own set (just don’t take credit for it).

[Brothers Brick via Make:]

Martin used his creativity and ingenuity to showcase what you can do with only a limited amount of parts. I was really impressed, especially since the parts are supposed to be assembled to look like this:

You can check out Martin’s other LEGO builds over at his Flickr site.

[via Brother's Brick]

When stripped bare, this R/C vehicle just looks like a flat LEGO base. I’m not sure if you can use just any old LEGO blocks with it, but start snapping on some of the 108 included color blocks, and you can build your own unique automotive creation. Of course, you can always change its look when you get bored. The BlockCar base comes in blue, yellow or red versions, and even has built-in headlights and tail lights. And if you get really creative, you could join multiple cars together to make one megaLEGOcar.

While the BlockCar isn’t an official LEGO product, it’s good enough for me (at least until LEGO makes their own version). You can get your hands on the BlockCar R/C vehicle over at Strapya World for just $22 (USD).

Created by Scott Holden for the recent Zone Ball in Sacramento, this Tauntaun not only looks great, it actually walks. Scott modeled out the original plan for the behemoth costume using SolidWorks, and then built out a stilt mechanism to stand on while walking around in it. And no, those aren’t the rider’s real legs dangling there on either side – they’re actually hidden inside standing on the stilts.

He built the Tauntaun’s main body using PVC pipe and fabricated custom stilts with snowboard bindings to hold the wearer’s feet and legs in place while walking.

Scott created a custom silicone mold for the head, and airbrushed the details on a final foam cast form. To give the beast its fuzzy coat, Scott covered it with layers of faux fur, fastened to the body with zip-ties.

Check out the video below to see the costume in action:

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can check out the complete build log here. All I can say is wow.

[via Make:]

This speaker cube was recently spotted over on the MAKE: Flickr Pool and seems like a really cool concept. Macetech, the guy who mocked this up never actually wired it to an amp, but I’d certainly take that next step. Now, I’m not sure what sort of weird issues you’d have with all those magnets facing the inside of the cube, but it’ll definitely crank out some kind of funky omni-directional sound if you wire all 6 together with the right amp.

Wanna give it a shot? I took a few minutes to research where you could get your hands on similar square Mylar speakers and found some from UK retailer Maplin for under $7 bucks a piece. Just add wire, zip ties and an amp you don’t care too much about.

[via MAKE:]

The project is from Instructables user Ricardoaraujo, and utilizes cutting-edge LED and AA battery technologies. Admittedly in parts the thing starts looking a little complicated but I’m sure you can soldier through and get ‘er done.

So get your butt to the hardware store for the pieces and get to work soon, lest you miss out on all those “Happy Jedi Tiemz.”

Click here for the DIY Lightsaber Instructables page.

[Too lazy to DIY? check out these prefab Lightsaber Construction Kits]

The easy to follow 2 Hour Robot tutorial was put together by robot builder Frits Lyneborg (aka “fritsl”), the same guy who created the awesome yellow drummer ‘bot recently featured on Technabob.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

With about $85 worth of parts, and a couple of hours of your time, you can have a fully-functional wheeled robot to do your bidding. You’ll need to pick up a couple of motors, a servo, some wheels, a Picaxe controller kit, an IR sensor, and a handful of other parts to get started. The project also requires some basic tools (i.e. screwdrivers, wire cutters, soldering iron) and soldering ability before you begin.

While it’s not the world’s most sophisticated robot (it certainly won’t be playing the trumpet or tasting your wine any time soon), it’s a great opportunity to get your feet wet and to learn the basics of robot building and programming. To get started on your first robotic endeavor, check out Frits’ complete tutorial over on Let’s Make Robots.

The GeekKlok comes in kit form, and can display 50 different character sets including everything from Roman numerals to Arabic to Chinese, Japanese and even Klingon. Time can even be displayed using special animated digits.

Kits range in price from $124 to $169, depending on the version, and if you want the parts already soldered on. Keep in mind that the kits only come with the PCB and electronics to drive the clock. You’ll need to dig up your own Nixie tubes and sockets (with a little guidance from the Zetalink guys), as well as a power supply.

And for those of you who want to know the current time in Klingon...

[via MAKE]

The bipedal MiniMechadon walker is fully functional, and can hobble around just like the ones in the motion pictures. While it’s not quite as polished as the movie robots, it certainly captures the spirit of the wobbly two-legged critters. What’s really cool about the robot is how its walking movements aren’t pre-programmed. Rather, it gradually figures out how to walk based on its own.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The robot’s builder, Mike Smyth, built the bot a couple of years back as a one-off for his personal use. That’s too bad, because an army of these marching around my office would be pretty cool.

[via TechEBlog]

The LedHat is a handcrafted wonder that involved soldering a grid of hundreds of individual green LEDs around the crown of a top hat. A microcontroller circuit enables the hat to display a variety of computer-programmed animations.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

I especially love the Space Invaders and Pac-Man patterns. Very cool indeed.

The initial version of the hat is a one-off, which took over a year for its builder (a guy by the name of Nick) to make it all come together. Nick has been kind enough to share a diary of the painstaking construction process here if you care to try and make one for yourself.

While I don’t know if I’d walk down the street wearing one of these, I’m sure it’s the life of the party at raves (assuming that anyone still goes to raves.)

[Hacked Gadgets via MAKE]

Harold’s Mercury BEAM Robot was scavenged from a variety of junk parts, but an old PlayStation console was the primary contributor, giving the ‘bot its two motors and other internals that keep it chugging along.

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Just like a real insect, Mercury has an innate desire to seek out sources of light. It took Ilano many weeks of painstaking effort in order to get the light tracking just right.

Glad to see the old console is still being put to some good use. (For those of you who don’t know what a BEAM robot is, there’s a good explanation here.)

[StreetTech via MAKE]

Game fan Philip Torrone and his team of builders put together this 5-foot wide joypad for the recently completed 2007 Maker Faire. Constructed mostly out of wood and assorted other parts, the controller is fully functional for playing games.

It’s actually so large that it requires multiple players to push on the buttons in order to operate it, enabling what I think could be called the first ever co-op gaming mode for an 8-bit console.

[via Spark Fun Electronics via Kotaku]

The game features a unique interface that controls the movement and rotation of the game pieces by pressing on square backlit LED buttons. The build team painstakingly assembled a grid of 240 buttons, 720 red, green and blue LEDs and 16 micro-controllers as well as a bunch of custom application code make it all work.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Nothing like a little ingenuity to breathe new life into an old (but classic) arcade game.

[via MAKE]

The $199.95 XGameStation Micro Edition isn’t particularly “next-gen,” but it lets you build your own games similar to those found on the old Atari 400/800 and Commodore 64 computers. The DIY kit comes complete with a fully assembled logic board, power supply, old school joystick and books on designing and programming video game consoles. In addition, it comes with XGS game development software that you can run on your Windows PC, along with a cable for moving your creations to the console.

The system features an 80MHz CPU and 128MB of RAM with raster graphics and sound chips inspired by the classic consoles and computers of the 80′s.