Gadgets, Gizmos, and Games for Geeks

Makers, here’s a new set of gizmos for your bag of tricks. Created by open-source interactive sensor company Bela, the Trill series is a line of sensors which make it easy to add capacitive touch interactions to any DIY electronic project. There are three devices in the Trill series, each designed for a different sort of touch project.

While I prefer my ramen noodles to be made fresh these days, there were many times back in college when instant ramen was as staple food, due to its incredible ease of cooking and budget pricing.

Tape is one of those really useful things that has always had a bit of a fateful flaw. Since it sticks to itself, it can be incredibly frustrating to find the end of it once you start using a roll.

The spaceships and star bases in Star Wars are some of the most iconic and recognizable in the history of moviemaking. There are lots of ways that collectors can enjoy these ships at home, from LEGO Imperial Star Destroyers to drones that look like the X-Wing fighters.

Artist Mirjana Kika Milosevic is known for her amazing body painting illusions. For her latest transformation, she managed to make herself look like one of the gremlins from the classic 1980s movie of the same name. Did someone feed her after midnight?

If and when you ever find yourself face to face with an attacker, a canister of pepper spray can help you fend off the bad guy and beat a hasty retreat. But just because you carry a can of pepper spray on your keychain doesn’t mean it needs to be ugly.

If you’ve ever been to a data center, you know they’re ice cold rooms filled with racks upon racks of computer and networking equipment, and neatly bolted into 19″ wide server racks. Most of those servers are made from steel and/or aluminum components.

If you love to play video games at your desk for hours on end, then you need a good chair with lots of support. Since Nissan knows a thing or two about engineering seats for long road trips behind the wheel, they decided to give it a shot, and came up with three awesome concept designs, each inspired by one of their vehicles.

In Men in Black, it turned out that Orion the cat held the entire universe on his collar. While it’s not quite as impressive as carrying the universe, you can carry the solar system on your wrist.

It’s been about two decades since I had to use a 3.5″ floppy disk for anything. I used to have boxes and boxes of the things packing everything from Microsoft Windows ridiculously bloated installers to various “warez” that I really shouldn’t have had in my possession.

The Vocoder was wildly popular in the disco era, and was given a new lease on life by Daft Punk and other electronic bands. But it turns out that there was a similar device that was used all the way back in the 1940s, called the Sonovox.

Halloween is just around the corner, and if you’re looking to win every costume party in town, you should head over to Two Horns United’s Etsy shop, and check out their incredible collection of custom-built helmets, costumes, and cosplay accessories.

Daniel Riley of Stratus Productions built a super bright 1,000W LED flashlight. Then, he did what any inventive geek would – he managed to mount it to a powerful Freefly Alta drone. The result is a flying machine that can crank out some truly breathtaking aerial effects. You’ll be amazed by the beautiful visuals in the video below.

If you’re a fan of Disney and Mickey Mouse, your mouse house isn’t complete without a pair of ears. Of course, you could go for the standard-issue black ears, but if you’re a little more of a tech geek, then you should consider making a pair like these.

LEGO has made some incredible Star Wars sets over the years, especially in its Ultimate Collectors Series. From the Death Star to the Millennium Falcon, LEGO fans have emptied their piggy banks time and again to enjoy some amazing and complex builds – often made of thousands of grey blocks to make things more challenging. Now, LEGO has revealed one of its biggest and most complex Star Wars set yet.

While most robots use legs or wheels to move around, more and more robotic systems are adopting other kinds of locomotion. Some even wriggle around like snakes or worms. This worm-like robot is designed to maneuver through veins – which sounds scary, but could actually save lives.   Developed by a group of engineers at MIT, this extremely thin robot can make its way through twisty, turny, and narrow paths like the veins in your brain.