mechanical on technabob...

Someday, people are going to learn not to mess with the dangerous technology. You’re not supposed to build an AI! Haven’t the movies taught you people anything? Apparently not, since some guy has gone and built himself a transforming robot.

Is it awesome? Of course it is–it’s a damn Transformer. It may not be a fancy little car or anything,…

Flash drives are becoming a popular item for the steampunk modding community, but projects like this are rare even so. This incredibly detailed piece of steampunk art sold out in a day at Etsy… even at the price of $165. A little steep for the average 16GB flash drive, but this one’s in no way average.

Just in case this…

When I came across this design for a retro-futuristic Chevy Camaro (aka the Steampunk Kamaro), I nearly lost my mind.

Then I realized that it wasn’t real, and only a graphic rendering by artist John ‘Jazz’ Vernon. Damn you and your photo-realistic rendering skills! My only hope is that since John’s company RodVisions does conceptual renderings of vehicles before owners…

It took me a second to figure out what was going on when I first got a look at this table full of analog clocks. But once I stood back from my screen, I realized that none of the clocks have the correct time and the whole thing is a macro timepiece that tells the time using 24 individual clocks.…

This amazing bit of mechanical technology not only can run on the ground, it can ascend difficult to scale surfaces like trees and telephone poles.

Designed by Boston Dynamics, working with researchers from The University of Pennsylvania’s Kod*lab, the RiSE V3 robot can work its way up poles without cracking so much as a sweat. The 28-inch long quadruped robot…

The Port of Yokohama in Japan is celebrating its 150th anniversary this year, and what better way to celebrate the opening of a port than with a couple of giant robot spiders from France?

The theater group La Machine terrorized performed at the Yokohama Bayside Area, bringing with them their 40 ft tall, 37-ton giant robot spiders. Finally, something weird…

This amazing mechanical gizmo is actually a very complex timepiece that tells time not with hands, LEDs or LCDs, but by actually writing the time on a piece of paper.

Created by the horological artisans of Switzerland’s Jaquet Droz, this analog clock is a true thing of wonder. La Machine à Ecrire le Temps (The Machine that Writes the Time) took…

Here’s a fun way to keep track of time. Designer Mike Mak’s Eyeclock tells time with a pair of slowly rotating disks that look like cartoon eyeballs.

The position of the left eyeball signifies hours, while the right one is minutes. Depending on the time of day, the eyes might be looking up (like at high noon), down (6:30), right…

Batteries schmatteries. Electricity shmelectricity. Who needs modern energy sources when you can have scalding hot steam to power your gadgets? This unique robot from Germany gets its juice from good old H2O.

Strenco’s ST-2 Steambot lumbers along thanks to a tiny copper Wilesco steam engine that’s been implanted in his chest cavity.

Now don’t expect to just flip a switch…

This over-the-top wall clock has way more gears than it really needs – but it’ll definitely draw stares from anyone who tries to tell time with it.

Homeloo’s Jumbo Gear Clock has not 2, 3 or even 10 gears. Nope, it’s got an more than 50 gears – each and every one of them exposed on the surface of the…

It’s not that I haven’t seen robotic sculptures before, but I can say with confidence that I’ve never seen any as intricate as Jeremy Mayer’s incredible typewriter robots.

Mayer builds his amazingly detailed sculptural creations entirely from parts found on old typewriters. His human and animal organic forms give new life to the cold metal of these mechanical relics.

The…

A while back, I came across an intricate analog clock that used mechanical parts to produce a simulated digital display. Now it appears that there’s a miniature version of the same concept present in a high-end designer watch from jewelry artist Harry Winston and watchmaker Frédéric Garinaud.

The display on the OPUS8 watch might looks like an LCD at first…

This unique electromechanical clock is like a cross between a Magna Doodle and an Etch-a-Sketch.

Using a modified Magna Doodle as the basis for their display, the Clock-a-Doodle-Doo is the brainchild of a recent UCLA mechanical engineering class.
The clock uses a XY plotter-like mechanism to “draw” the current time by neatly arranging the magnetic particles with a mechanical pen.…

If you don’t happen to have enough room for one of those 22-foot tall styrofoam robots to defend the homestead, that’s okay. Thanks to the wild and wonderful creations of robot insect builder TinyMinds, you can get your hands on some little robots which should do the trick just as well.

Whether its the flapping wings of the mosquito-like Gonzo,…

I’ll just start out by saying this: I’m a sucker for cool digital clocks. And this one is a real doozy. UK designer Duncan Shotton’s Digimech clock may look like an LED or LCD timepiece on the surface, but it’s actual a complicated mechanical contraption that creates a 7-segment digital illusion.

A series of cryptic looking numeric black on white…