This incredible sculpture is the work of French artist Alain Bellino, and yes, this Darth Vader (or as they call him in France “Dark Vador”) has apparently been around for almost a decade, but it’s the first time I’ve seen it, so that makes it new for at least one of us. So, those eyes I was mentioning before? They’re made from a couple of old tarnished spoons. Yep, you heard me right. Check it out if you don’t believe me:

Building upon these evil eyes, Alain gradually assembled the entire Vader head – first from brass and bronze decorative elements, but then eventually finished it in black, completing his transformation to the Dark Side.

Makes you wonder what Star Wars might have been like with a golden Darth Vader. Seems like something which might have been in some Japanese version of the films. Or maybe in the next CGI revision by Lucas.

[Behance via Regretsy]

Apparently, the ball is a pressure vessel of some sort that is used in spacecraft, so it’s simply space junk that didn’t burn up in the atmosphere. I wonder if the Meteor Men would want to sell the thing on eBay.

The first thing I thought of when I saw this was that 80′s comedy called The Gods Must Be Crazy where the tribesman that has never seen modern society gets hit in the head by a bottle dropped form an airplane. I think if this metal orb had hit someone it would have been a bigger issue, at least for the person nailed in the head by something weighing over six kilograms having a 43.3-inch circumference falling at terminal velocity.

[via Gizmodo]

Tom has created hundreds of these sculptures, entirely made out of scrap car and motorcycle parts. You’ll find animals, vehicles, people, creatures from fantasy and even some furniture in his collection. Many of the sculptures aren’t small, either. His T-Rex is about 28 feet in height. The build process involves collecting cars from a junkyard, then sorting through the parts. Then they are cleaned, and welded together, then polished and lacquered. Nothing is wasted.

It takes about 400 hours to complete a large sculpture. This translates to about two to three months.

Tom has recently started to collaborate with his friend Marco Mahler, and they are available for custom work. Check it out here if you want them to make you a special sculpture.

[via DesignYouTrust]

These gigantic Autobot art pieces were created from recycled automobile and truck parts by Thailand-based Anchalee Saengtai and her team for Ripley’s Believe it or Not. They’ve already unveiled a Bumblebee statue in San Antonio, while the Optimus Primus statue is currently in San Francisco. Throughout this summer, more sculptures will be added to the New York City, London, Myrtle Beach, South Carolina, and Jeju Island locations.

You’ll be able to see these sculptures at various Ripley’s attractions around the world this summer to coincide with the release of Transformers 3: Dark of the Moon.

[via Wired]

Mike had a bunch of parts he was going to put in the trash, and decided to give them new life as a robotic sculpture. He gathered up discarded circuit boards and parts from friends and family too, and managed to build a robot with quite a personality.

He’s got body parts from Dell, AMD, IBM, Maxtor, Toshiba, Sharp, Gateway among others. Nice touch there with the CPUs and flash drives for his brains.

I especially like the eyes – which came from some old Canon and HP digital cameras. You know that thing they say about the eyes being the window to one’s soul, right?

All in all, it’s a loving tribute to technology that at one point was an integral part of someone’s livelihood, education or entertainment. I think we need to build an entire shrine to old technology filled with these guys.

[via Total Geekdom]

No matter what reason compelled he had to create all of these robot replicas, I have to say that they look pretty awesome. These ones include a touch of color, which is nice. It kind of fleshes them out.

These sculptures were created at Jiang Chen and Yang Junlin’s Wing Wah ironworks factory. Check out the rest of the scrap heap Transformers they’ve created here.

[via Neatorama via Obvious Winner via Geekologie]

NASA scientists are now conducting a study that Dr. Evil would approve of. They’re looking at the possibility of using a ground-based laser to clean up the debris. The space agency says that about 60% of the junk orbiting the Earth right now that threatens satellites like the ESA Earth observing satellite can be traced back to the Chinese military test of an anti-satellite weapon and the collision between the Iridium 33 and Cosmos 2251 satellites.

They would use a medium-powered (5kW) laser on Earth to track and then fire at the orbiting debris. The laser wouldn’t burn the debris up itself or attempt to directly destroy it. However, the scientists reckon the laser will slow the down the debris’ orbit enough so that it will fall back into the atmosphere and burn up before hitting the ground. The system may even be able to maneuver satellites from the ground with the satellite needing no propulsion of its own.

[via TechnologyReview]

All of these ‘bots are made from reclaimed junk, and I think it’s a great reuse of stuff that you can find in trash. Initially, Lockwasher was intent on making rayguns (just like any mad scientist would do, right?) He soon saw that he need some robotic accomplices, so he started using his heaps of trash to make junkbots too.

The updated BeertooD3 features a flashlight as his ‘eye’. The other ‘bot in this post is named Doris and was inspired by Disney’s Meet The Robinsons. You can check out more of Lockwasher’s cool retro-junk creations over at his Flickr photostream.

[via Designboom]

Standing 32-feet tall, and residing just North of the Bird’s Nest at Beijing’s Olympic Park, the giant Transformer might not be as tall as giant Gundam, but you have to hand it to the Chinese for their ingenuity. You see, Optimus Prime was entirely recycled. He was built from 10,108 junk parts.

[People Daily via Topless Robot]

Handmade by Bangkok artist Yumi Modal, the only thing better would be if the little metal guy’s lightsaber actually lit up – but whaddya want for scrap metal? Of course, Yoda is not alone over at Yumi’s machine shop. He’s being kept company by everyone from Robocop to the Predator to the T-800 (with light-up eyeballs!)

Be sure to check out of Yumi’s other amazing metal creature creations here. Best part is that she ships all around the globe (although the shipping charges can be substantial).

[via Jadeice via Walyou]

The statue measures in at nearly 32 feet-tall, and weighs in at a staggering 4 tons! Incredibly, it’s almost entirely made from parts from an old truck. Other than some parts on his face and the sword, everything else is recycled truck junk.

The statue is supposed to be modeled not after any specific ‘bot from the Transformers, but based on the Chinese deity Guan Gong. Frankly, I don’t see the resemblance. Looks more like the cousin of Truckasaurus to me.

Who’s up for making one of these stateside? I’ll chip in $20 bucks towards the purchase of a  junkyard truck.

[via 163 via Cloned in China]

Although these robots made from found objects don’t really function (other than maybe lighting up), they are intriguing. I honestly don’t know what to call these things. Steam-bots? Ro-Punks?

Needless to say that my faves are the Futurama-inspired robots – although the green Bart Simpson ‘bot is pretty cool too.

[via Presurfer]

While I can’t identify all of the components used in the RRoDMan Xbox 360, I see plenty of the wiring, connectors, plastic bits and RF shielding that you’d find inside your 360. Jasper says the entire sculpture is made from parts harvested from his deceased 360 – with no tape, glue or other parts holding it together.

Unfortunately, there wasn’t enough room to cram in the 360′s DVD drive, but it does make a nice base for the robo-sculpture. And I think he could build a whole baby-bot out of the giant 360 power brick.

All I can say is great job, Jasper! I hope your 360 was already out of warranty. I was this close to doing the same with my PS3 Phat the other day when it got hit with the Y2K10229 bug, but luckily it resolved itself.

StarQ’s ifit Sports sells for 280 yuan (appx. $41 USD), and instead of a Balance Board, comes with a floor mat that’s more reminiscent of a Dance Dance Revolution controller than something for intended for fitness or sports games. Here’s a shot of the ifit controller compared to the just slightly more simple and compact Wii Balance Board.

For your first position, place your right foot on 2, your left foot on 26, your left hand on 8, and your right hand on 1 – GO! Actually, this thing might be better suited to a game of electronic Twister.

And while the system comes with 80 mini-games, most of them look about as exciting as watching paint dry. Activities include standing on one leg, standing on the other leg, and walking in place. Wow, how much fun is that?

Here’s some video of the slippy floormat controller getting all bunched up during gameplay. Looks like more fun than humans should be allowed to have.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

And from the looks of this clip, there’s even a foot-powered version of Tetris. While I can’t read Chinese, I’m pretty sure it should be called Footris. Or Shitris.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

If you really want one of these, you’ll probably need to make your way to China and dig around the schlock shops to get yours. Or not.

[via Trendy Net via GamOvr]

The YD-965 Dot Matrix certainly steals its looks from the DS Lite, but on further inspection you’ll notice that it’s really a piece of junk. For starters, you’ll notice the top screen is black and white with big blocky pixels, and the game cartridges themselves feature some decidedly low-tech printed backgrounds that slide behind the LCD screen to provide a colored backdrop.

And that bottom screen – well it’s not even a screen at all – it’s a sticker with a picture on it!. Frankly, the game on the sticker looks much more exciting than the five game cartridges that come with the system: Tank, King Boxing, The Wall, Star War and Risk King.

Speaking of Risk-King, that’s the most appropriate name for a game on this system, as you will definitely be Risk-King $11 dollars of your hard-earned money if you order one of these.

The 18.5″ tall Speaker Bot is an “assemblage robot”, or in layperson’s speak, a robot made from old junk. This one-of-a-kind robot was created by New York’s Lipson Robotics, and was created from a variety of found objects. I actually think that 289V logo came from an old Ford Mustang. Sweet. And smack dab in the middle of his chest is one of those mini MP3 speaker amps, so he can crank out your tunes. I like the old iPod in the picture too – I wonder if that counts as a retro piece of junk now?

At $550 (USD), the Speaker Bot is not the cheapest iPod dock out there, but it’s clear a lot of work went into his assembly, so I think he’s worth it. You can check out Speaker Bot and a whole bunch of other cool upcycled robot sculptures over at Lipson Robotics’ Etsy shop.

According to Yllas, the artist who created these robot sculptures from old electronic parts, camera lenses, and other surplus junque – she was planning on building an evil robot. Instead she ended up with this guy, the Not So Evil Found Object Assemblage Bot. He’s available over at the Nutzen Bolts Works shop over on Etsy.

The photo above is captioned, “I think we should try a 5.” Awwww.

And that’s a robot dog that poops lead. I think. I also think that Lenny & Meriel could make a small fortune out of selling their creations. You can see more shots of their Sparebots on Lenny’s blog and on the pair’s Flickr site.

[via Neatorama]

You be the judge, but I can’t imagine walking around listening to anything worse than a lumpy, Pepto Bismol pink cartoon mouse-shaped media player, let alone one that can only hold 1GB of songs, and has a headphone jack sticking into the top of its head, like some sort of lobotomy instrument.

And what kind of music would you store on this anyhow? I can only imagine listening to some horrible pap like the Jonas Brothers or Miley Cyrus on this, and would never defile the likes of Radiohead or The White Stripes with such an abysmal looking creation.

I guess if there’s one positive thing to say about this vehemently uglified thing is that it’s dirt cheap. You can get one for the low, low price of $13.13 (USD). So what are you waiting for? Throw that iPod Touch in the trash, and head on over to Chinavasion to order your new MP3 player.

Whether its the flapping wings of the mosquito-like Gonzo, or the wobbling octopod legs of Cthulhu, each of these BugBots is truly unique.

Every lumpy, bumpy member of the BugBot family is handcrafted from a variety of found materials and electronic componentry, and runs entirely on solar energy.

While I do love the mechanical winged and legged critters, I have to say that my personal favorite are the googley eyed light-seeking bots (Ernie and Bert), who amble around on a single-minded mission to find the brightest light source around.

TinyMinds’ current menagerie of tiny robotic bugs range in price from about $60 to $80 a piece, and can be found over on their Etsy shop.