The medals all feature work by Canadian artists Corrine Hunt and Omer Arbel, and are each laser-etched with a unique design so that no two of the games’ medals will be the same. But perhaps most interestingly, the medals are made from materials reclaimed from used electronics. All that gold, silver, and bronze used to be running something… and now it’ll all be part of some of the biggest and heaviest medals in Olympic history.

The medals are also not flat, but instead move and rise, a design said to spring from the undulating land of Vancouver.

[via notcot]

Can’tAffordEmCrafts, an Etsy storefront, has several of those former-Atari-cartridges for sale, now in useful clock form, as well as some other repurposed media (like old records). While I’m not sure if I could remove the innards of an old cartridge myself (the pain!), I’m glad there are others in the world, who are harder of heart, so that I can enjoy nifty game cartridge clocks. And even buy one, if I wanted. You can snag these for $20.

[via Sprite Stitch]

The backpack is a thing of beauty, with buckles and all, as well as an interior lined with Transformers fabric. Creative–and appropriate–repurposing.

Can you believe this has been up for sale at Etsy for almost two years? At $89.99 (USD), it’s certainly not cheap, but my plain ol’ regular backpack wasn’t much less, and it has no Transformers or seat belts. Just a bunch of extraneous buckles and hooks and things. It’s all very boring.

This not-boring bag is available from 21CannonSalute’s Etsy shop.

Created by artist ZacharyBear, this Jacob’s Ladder is made from a bunch of old 3.5-inch floppy disks, woven together to create this perplexing, noisy plaything. Check out the video clip below to see this thing in action…

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

You can grab a set of these over on ZacharyBear’s Etsy shop for just $15 bucks. What’s the last time you really needed that set of Aldus Pagemaker 6.0 installer floppies anyhow?

Unfortunately, however, in order to pull this one off, you’re gonna need more than just an old keyboard. While there’s a detailed tutorial available, it might just require materials or steps that seem foreign to you. If you have a dremel tool lying around, though, or are familiar with jewelry-making, then you’re a few quick steps away from your own keyboard earrings.

What keys to choose? Your initials? Arrow keys? A two-tiered set so you can use WASD? That would require some thought.

[Craft Bits via Crafty Crafty]

Called “Text-ile”, the armchair was made by designers Dante Bonuccelli and Lamm for the 2009 UMUL (Use More, Use Less) project, a workshop dedicated to incorporating recycling in design.

The chair is made of 40 computer keyboards that were obtained from a company that makes laptops for blind people. I’m starting to think that this one’s no good as well; the keys would make too much noise. Do you think a trackball chair would be better? Perhaps an LCD screen chair?

[via MoCo Loco via walyou]

This clever battery recycling box by Luckies of London looks like a giant cousin to those batteries you were just about to throw in the trash. Just load up the cylindrical metal container with your deceased batteries, and once it’s filled up, head on over to your local electronics recycling center. By recycling your old dead batteries, you’ll be doing something good for the earth, as throwing them out in the regular trash can leak hazardous heavy metals into the soil as the exterior shell corrodes.

You can grab the battery recycling box over at UK gift shop Prezzybox for £6.95 (appx. $10 USD). And wheneve you can, try and use rechargeables – you won’t have to throw them out nearly as often

Handcrafted by Pennsylvania artist Toby Atticus Fraley, these robot sculptures are assembled from vintage found objects (aka “Junque”), and lovingly reconfigured by Fraley to form one-of-a-kind artworks.

Each robot has a unique personality, ranging from rock star, to an amputee robot, to a Slim Pickens as Major T.J. ‘King’ Kong riding a nuke in Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb – ‘bot.

While they’re made up of a variety reclaimed objects, it seems that Toby has an affinity for old picnic coolers and vacuum cleaner parts. And while you can’t get a good sense of size from these images, just know that they’re very substantial, ranging in height from about 28″ tall, all the way up to a near-life-size 58″ tall.

Toby has also recently started to make some most excellent neo-futuristic remote controls for turning his robot lights on and off from across the room.

Fraley’s robots have made their way into the private collections of Grammy Award winning musicians, a Silicon Valley tech company headquarters, and a had a cameo in couple of TV scenes over on HGTV. Now you can own one of these wondrous creations for yourself.

A handful of Fraley’s robots are now available over at Uncommon Goods (priced from $1800 to $1900 a piece). Check out the complete collection over on Toby’s website.

Smith takes broken down electronics and machine parts to create her amazing menagerie of animal and insect sculptures.

While they aren’t mechanical works themselves, many of her “robots” do feature posable joints, which she’s used to produce stop-motion animation of her critters.

Ann’s works are sold in galleries and shops around the US, and have been featured as illustrations in a number of magazines and other publications.

Find out more about Ann and her art over on her website burrowburrow. And when you’re ready to buy one of her pieces for your very own, be sure to check out her Etsy shop. Prices range from as little as $22 for simple insects, all the way up to $2500+ for her most intricate creations.

[via The Presurfer via designboom]

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.

After stefferroo’s brother dropped his iPod under his car and then proceeded to run it over, it was surely headed for the trash bin. But after some inspiration from an NES controller mouse mod, steff decided to make the defunct media player into a mouse too. The arrow buttons on the click wheel were even modded to act as the left and right buttons for the mouse.

Since the guts of the iPod were pretty much toast, stefferroo ripped them out and replaced them with the innards of an optical mouse. But what’s with that LCD screen you ask? Unfortunately, that got smashed in the accident, and has been replaced with a piece of paper with a screeenshot of the iPod’s original display.

I wonder if anyone could figure out a way build one of these while retaining the functionality of the iPod, or maybe even use the screen as a remote control for iTunes. Better yet, how about getting the iPod’s scroll wheel to work as a mouse scroll wheel? It’s doubtful that you could cram all the electronics needed inside, but it sure would be cool.

[via Craftster]

Little Big Man 2008 is the offspring of mechanical sculptor Nemo Gould, known for his incredible kinetic creations built from post-consumer junk.

The eponymous “Big Man” is an 8-foot tall robot made from found objects including a vintage radio cabinet, street lamp poles, vacuum cleaner parts, industrial food processor, antlers, chair legs, dining room table top, floor polisher, and a variety of scrap metal, motors and other parts.

The “Little Man” lives inside the belly of the beast, working at the controls of his unwitting host. As he pulls his levers, the giant’s mouth opens and closes with an imposing bite. Check out the video clip below to see the robotic sculpture in motion.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Nemo has put together a brief video showing some of the behind-the-scenes action as he builds his amazing mechanical creations.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

The automata was built especially for the San Jose Museum of Art’s “Robots: Evolution of a Cultural Icon” show, which runs from now through October 19, 2008. If you happen to be in the Bay Area, be sure to check it out in person.

[via The Automata via Walyou]

By taking an old Apple 5-1/4″ floppy drive he found at a thrift store, then working some electronics wizardry on the interior, modder Jeff Kobi took this old piece of tech junk and gave it new life as a retro-styled amplifier.

At the heart of the revamped drive is the hacker’s favorite Sonic Impact 5066 T-amp, capable of cranking out amazing clarity and boldness with just 15-watts per channel.

Wanna make your own? Check out Jeff’s step-by-step tutorial over on Instructables.

The Vers 2X offers room-filling sound thanks to a pair of 3-inch full-range speakers, powered by a 20-watt per channel (peak) class-D amplifier. The dual ported enclosure helps to produce extra bass boom despite the cabinet’s relatively small size ( 11.5″ W x 5.6″ H x 5.6″ L).

The $149 system includes adapters for playing and charging most iPod models including: iPod Video, iPod Nano, iPod mini, iPod, iPod classic, iPod touch and even the iPhone. There’s also a universal dock for other MP3 players. The Vers also includes a slick brushed metal 14-function remote control, which lets you control volume, change tracks, switch playlists and more.

As an added bonus, Versaudio takes an environmentally-friendly approach with their products. The 2X is built using wood farmed from sustainable plantations, assembled using screws instead of glues, and even comes packaged in 100% recycled and recyclable paper.

[Product Information]

Researchers in the UK have devised a new mobile phone body which can simply be tossed into the compost heap, and will disintegrate within weeks. Once the phone’s shell has broken down, an embedded sunflower seed is released into the earth, sprouting life anew from your wayward technological garbage.

A team at the University of Warwick’s Warwick Manufacturing Group, in conjunction with PVAXX Research & Development Ltd. and Motorola used a special biodegradable polymer which is completely functional under normal working conditions, yet starts to rapidly decompose when placed in compost. Now they haven’t solved the problem of what to do with all those nasty toxins in your phone’s electronic components and battery pack, but at least they’ve got a solution for all those cheap plastic cases.

For those of us with iPhones, we’ll just have to melt down our aluminum and glass beauties using conventional recycling techniques when that iPhone 2.0 eventually comes along.

[via Baby Ruthless via Roadside Scholar]

This amazing transformation started with a 1961 Soviet REKORD tv set and turned it into a modern Windows PC. A team of talented casemodders recently built a complete computer system into the antique wooden TV case. The design kind of makes me think of what the original Macintosh might have looked like if it was made out of wood instead of plastic.

The system is fully self-contained, with the computer, monitor, subwoofer and speakers built into the case, and a wireless mouse and keyboard for controlling the PC.

There are plenty of nifty details in the design, including motion-sensitive LEDs which imitate the flickering of an old television. Old style toggle switches turn the system on and off, and the LCD monitor is switched by pushing on the metal REKORD logo on the front of the set. Very nice.

[DarkRoastedBlend via GizmoWatch]

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]

For some reason, I’m guessing it’s not the world’s most comfortable chair, but it sure beats sitting on a bunch of 8-track tapes.

I’m really not sure why he named his creation the “Panda Chair”, since all I see are CDs and a metal frame — no pandas anywhere in sight. Maybe it’s the same reason that Chinese mall food joint is called Panda Express. Every time I try to order the Kung Pao Panda, they look at me like I have three heads.

[via designboom]

The Deptford Design Market Challenge encourages artists to re-purpose and recycle old found objects into new, functional items that you’d actually want to use. This particular piece started out as a beat up guitar with all its strings broken and no tuning pegs. But with a little ingenuity, the designers from Conran and Partners created a cool new iPod dock and stereo. The very idea of this gets the squeaky little wheels in my brain turning about how I might be able to put my junk to good use too.

If you happen to be in London between now and September 25th, you can check out the entire collection of reworked items at Southbank Centre’s Royal Festival Hall.

[via anamorphosis]

In addition to the environmentally-friendly reuse of materials, Bird-Electron Kodak Speakers don’t even need a battery to operate. Apparently, the low volume output from a headphone jack is enough to drive these little speakers. They use small mylar drivers to bounce sound into the film canisters, which then project omni-directional sound waves. I wouldn’t expect stellar audio from these, and the maker freely admits that they have a decidedly “retro” sound quality.

Until now, they’ve only been available in Japan, but thanks to gadget importer Audiocubes, you can now pick up a pair stateside. At $55 a pair, they’re not necessarily a bargain, but they sure are different.