Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

McDonald’s isn’t exactly known for the best food, but it is certainly one of the most consistent places to grab a quick bite on the road – and sometimes you just crave the textures and salty seasonings of their burgers and fries.

Since The Mandalorian was released close to Christmas last year, not many official toys of Baby Yoda (aka “The Child”) made it to market in time for the holidays. That’s all changing in 2020, and this might be the best one yet.

As far as I know, most clothes are made out of fabric like cotton, polyester, leather, or nylon. But this unusual fashion line is made entirely out of rubber bands. Student Rie Sakamoto designed the stretchy clothes as part of her Integrated Design thesis project at Japan’s Tama Art University.

Chewbacca and Groot have some things in common. They’re both big, strong, brown, and men of action – not words. But neither of them is particularly cute (though Baby Groot is a different story.)  But if you combined the furry mop of Chewie with the plant-growing abilities of Groot, then shrunk them down to pint-size, the offspring would be simply adorable. This little guy was created by Redwood Stoneworks, who based the design on the head of Chewbacca’s Funko Pop figure.

Building LEGO replicas is one thing, but building working replicas of guns in LEGO is something entirely different. Check out this reproduction of the NERF Maverick REV-6 blaster by AstonishingStudios. This is some awesome LEGO engineering. This fully-functional blaster uses only plastic bricks and a metal spring for power.

Head down the rabbit hole every time you use your computer. That’s the notion behind this keycap set that features imagery inspired by the Lewis Carroll classic “Alice in Wonderland.” Designed by keyboard enthusiast Rafal Hrynkiewicz, the UnAlice keycap set comes in a creamy Winter White color, with a skinny, easy-to-read typeface.

If you live in a house constructed with a wood frame or wooden siding, this is the last thing you ever want to buy. But if your dwelling is made from brick, concrete, stone, metal, or glass, read on… Do you want to see what termites can do to a piece of wood?

KFC’s marketing folks have some really strange ideas. Over the years, they’ve made chicken-scented fireplace logs, gravy-scented candles, and a Colonel Sanders bearskin rug. They’re either insane or creative geniuses, because they’ve got me talking about their brand yet again.

Do your kids love science, technology, engineering, or math? Sony’s KOOV system is a great tool for kids to learn about all of these disciplines, while having lots of fun doing it. These modular building kits encourage kids to experiment as they construct robots and other mechanical creations, and learn to program them.

There are lots of different ways to tell the time. You can use an old school analog clock with hands, a segmented digital display, or even a sundial. But I can say with 100% certainty that this is the first clock I’ve ever seen that tells time with sequins. Architect and tinkerer Ekaggrat Singh Kalsi put together the Sequino, a truly unique timepiece that takes advantage of the bi-colored nature of some sequins, flipping them from one side to the other to reveal the current time.

Are you hungry for some milk and cookies? You could trudge all the way to the kitchen cabinet and grab some Oreos, then open the fridge to grab a bottle of milk, but that would be way too much work.

Computer graphics have come a very long way in the past couple of decades, offering up images which are becoming more and more difficult to distinguish from reality. Especially notable are the improvements in physics engines, which allow objects to move and behave more like they do in real life.

If you’re a Star Trek fan, here’s something a little different for your collection. These kits from OzpinsFactory let you assemble your own starships from sheets of laser-cut birch plywood. These models are really nifty, and come in a variety of designs based on ships from the Trek universe.

Imagine a LEGO car factory where, like the real world, the workers have been replaced by robots. Did this make LEGO cars cheaper for the people of LEGOLand? Probably so. The factory is faster than ever with no minifigs working the line, making mistakes and getting the occasional limb chopped off.

I always loved playing Atari’s vector-based arcade games back in the 1980s. Games like Tempest, BattleZone, and Quantum were some of my favorites. And then there was Star Wars. I loved shooting down TIE fighters, zapping radar towers, and zooming into the belly of the Death Star to take aim at its exhaust port in hopes of blowing the thing to smithereens.

Star Wars fanatics can hitch a ride to places far, far away on a special United Airlines jet decked out as the only Star Wars-themed commercial jet winging it across the galaxy. Or at least across North America, Central America and the Caribbean. Star Alliance’s United Airlines collaborated with “Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker” – the epic conclusion of the Skywalker saga – to create a nose-to-tail Star Wars design on one of its Boeing 737-800 aircraft, plus inside some fun decor tweaks and themed services. The exterior paint design features images of great Star Wars spacecraft, including X-wing and TIE fighter starships.