Technabob » skeleton

Eccerobot Looks Like a Robot Cyclops After an Acid Bath

Conner Flynn — Thu, 05 Apr 2012 19:30:03 +0000

ECCEROBOT is an anthropomimetic robot. It is outfitted with bones, muscles, and even tendons in order to move the way that humans do. It does this very well, and it’s creepy to watch. Extra creepy thanks to it’s cyclops face and complete lack of skin.

ECCEROBOT was built by Professor Owen Holland of the University of Sussex. So what is this robot all about, aside from scaring humans silly and looking like a freshly-skinned cyclops? Well, Holland and his team believe that artificial intelligence can’t exist without an artificial body that informs a robot’s brain.

The idea is that their work on ECCEROBOT could help advance AI research and help them figure out how to get the brain to control the body in various ways, which is quite a challenge.

[BBC via TheDailyWhat via Neatorama]

GingerDead Men Cookie Cutters: Don’t Choke on Any Frosting Bones

Jack Kieffer — Mon, 07 Nov 2011 15:00:56 +0000

The following post is from Technabob guest writer Jack Kieffer of Cool Gizmo Toys, a site written by geeks, for geeks. Thanks, Jack!

The GingerDead Men Cookie Cutters turn your happy cookies into walking skeleton creatures of evil. One side of the product cuts the shape of the walking dead, and the other imprints the skeleton design onto its body. They make great stocking stuffers for geeks of all kinds, and are awesome for people who love to eat. A safe bet is that most people you know enjoy eating, so, you can’t really go wrong, unless they happen to be deathly afraid of skeletons. Or gingerbread men. *Hears footsteps* DON’T EAT ME! *Gets hit by a gumdrop.*

The GingerDead Men cookie cutters are great, but your geeky friends might prefer to be given the Pac-Man cookie cutters or the Ninjabread cookie cutters if they’re more into Ka-rah-tay. *Karate chops a fern* That shrubbery will think twice the next time it decides to look at me funny. *Fern stands up and retaliates*

So, after being reduced to nothing by an angry fern, I recommend that you keep the violence in your cookies and the cookies in your fern, since it will be angry if you don’t appease it with food. Also, do you have any idea how long your plants have been filling their bladders? It’s incredibly painful, and contributes to their irritability. *Slapped by the fern* Your drinks are coming, sir, there’s just been a slight delay in the kitchen! *Scurries off to get some Root Beer*

The GingerDead Men are sold individually for $7 (USD) from Perpetual Kid and ThinkGeek.

LEGO Skeleton: Bricks for Bones

Lambert Varias — Mon, 04 Jul 2011 15:30:27 +0000

This anatomically-incorrect but still cool LEGO skeleton was built by Flickr user/LEGO Doctor/skull lover Clay Morrow. I know that Morrow used a mix of LEGO and custom parts to make the skeleton, although honestly I can’t tell which are official LEGO parts and which are not. Morrow also modified some of the bricks to fit his design.

This model is actually Morrow’s second take on making a LEGO skeleton. The first one had no veins and organs, although it did have fiery eyes, a hood, a sword and a scythe at one point.

Unfortunately I don’t think Morrow has posted instructions for making his complete LEGO skeleton, but if all you want is to replicate the skull, Morrow does have detailed instructions for that on his blog. Be sure to check out Morrow’s Flickr page to see high quality pictures of the skeleton as well as his other LEGO creations.

[via Who Killed Bambi?]

Kinect X-Ray Hack: No Those Aren’t Your Innards

Technabob — Tue, 04 Jan 2011 03:20:16 +0000

How’d you like to be able to see your insides courtesy of your Microsoft Kinect. Sorry, you can’t. But thanks to this hack, you might be able to use the Kinect to see a virtual model of your guts using the Xbox 360′s wonder-gadget.

Tobias Blum and Nassir Navab at the Computer Aided Medical Procedures and Augmented Reality Program at the Technical University of Munich created their Magic Mirror program which allows you do stand in front of the Kinect, and see a skeleton inside your body.

Click to View Embedded Video Clip

Using OpenNI and PrimeSense NITE, they’re able to superimpose high resolution CT images of a person’s insides onto the body of the person standing in front of the Kinect. As the subject moves around, the screen shows a virtual window into their guts. For their prototype, the CT scan came from a different person, so it’s not really accurate. Still, it looks pretty cool to me.

Blum and Navab say that the technology could someday be used as a tool for teaching anatomy. Personally, I’d like to see it used for a video game version of Operation where you have to perform surgery on yourself. That, I’d pay money for.

[via Wired via Make:]

Super Mario Anatomy Lesson

Technabob — Mon, 20 Sep 2010 00:59:42 +0000

Now that we’ve seen Mario with his clothes off, what else could you possibly ask for next? How about a look at his innards? Well, it is the Internet, and there is something for everyone out there, right?

Artist Jason Freeny appears to have studied his plumber physiology well, and has cut open Mario for us to see all his bones and internal organs. I was assuming that we might see some 1-up mushrooms making their way through his lower intestine, but no such luck. He’s also not 100% anatomically-correct, if you know what I mean – unless Mario is a Eunuch – and we have proof that’s not the case.

You probably don’t want to show this one to your kids unless you want them to have nightmares for a really long time.

[via Popped Culture]

Cassette Tape Skeleton: Honey, I Made You a Mix Tape

Technabob — Sat, 26 Jul 2008 11:41:13 +0000

This oooey-gooey delicious skeleton is made from the melted down old carcasses of cassette tapes. Artist Brian Dettmer created these guys for an exhibition at the International Museum of Surgical Science, right here in my hometown of Chicago.

While the full-sized skeleton looks like it’s inspired by 80s greats such as R.E.M., The Knack, and The Police, this skull the artist also made appears to have fallen off from too much head-banging. (Note the Judas Priest and Mötley Crüe cassettes).

For some reason, these remind me of the famous face-melting scene in Raiders of the Lost Ark.

[via Clutter via ALBOTAS]

Voodoo Glow Skull Arrives Just in Time for Halloween

Technabob — Tue, 09 Oct 2007 21:41:06 +0000

I’m thinking that this Halloween, I’d like to scare all the neighborhood kids out of their wits with a bunch of these disembodied robo-heads sitting in my front windows.

The brilliantly named “Glowing Scary Deaths-Head Toy” looks like your average, everyday metal-headed, Skeletor-robot-zombie until you flip the switch. Once powered up, the skull lights up with a pair of mighty evil looking red eyeballs, sure to give your haunted house visitors a fright.

The cool thing is that they’re only $2.85 each, so you could easily buy a hundred of these things and have your very own freaky skull army. Cool.