Well, it’s almost cherry blossom season. In about two weeks’ time the first sakura buds will start to bloom in the south of Japan. As the season makes its way north we can witness the requisite stampede of families, office workers and underage kids, all vying for the same patches of grass beneath cherry trees in urban parks. Thus begins the annual spectacle that is the drunkard hanami picnic.

If competing for the same valued space with tens of thousands of others doesn’t sound like fun, then we recommend you get your hands on the Magic Sakura (まじっく桜), a desktop toy that recreates the hanami spirit in miniature.

The paper tree stands at 13.5cm (5.3″) tall and looks rather bare until you add the included “magic water”. Then pink blossom starts to appear within a few hours, eventually covering the whole tree. I guess this is the equivalent of a mini Christmas tree for the Japanese! You can have your sakura experience at home or work, minus all the crowds and fuss.

The Magic Sakura is priced 680 JPY ($7.5) and is available now inside Japan.

[Via Digital Gadgets Freak.]

Originally by William from Trends in Japan – CScout Japan Blog on March 7, 2010, 6:52pm

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I made my first Blade Runner pistol when I was 18, while living in Hell’s Kitchen, NYC. I stared at the VHS version on pause and made sketches. Put it together from toys and model kit parts. It’s lovely and terrible:

(Years later the internet would teach me that the six dollar plastic gun I bought on Canal street in NYC and cannibalized for the grip was created by Edison Giacattoli, a legendary toy gun designer)

I made a crazy accurate scratch-built when I was 30, from resin and bondo. I had great picture reference but shitty size reference, it was 20% too small. Fuck!

I even had it chrome plated at one point and I weathered it:

In 2006, the screen-used original surfaced after 25 some-odd years and sold at auction last year for $256,000.00. Supposedly to Paul Allen [That myth has been busted -- Mark]:

This is the final iteration:

It’s 95% finished. My hand-built baby. About 30-40 hours of labor spread out over (at least) 6 years. An original Steyr-Mannlicher .222 target rifle receiver and magazine and a Charter Arms Bulldog .44, both demilled and gunsmithed by me (working with hardened steel — FUN!) with custom machined aluminum and steel parts (barrel, grip, butt) and made as close as possible, in every respect, to the original. Painstaking.

That is all I have to say on the subject (probably not). I can’t even describe how good it feels to hold it in my hand.

[Click thumbnails below for enlargements]

Originally by Adam Savage from Boing Boing on March 9, 2010, 7:46pm

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Time to expand your building power with your Lego Mindstorms®. You must be tired of rotating things all day with regular old motors. It’s time to start moving things bach and forth, up and down, in and out! Like a REAL engineer. Firgelli actuators will make you the coolest kid on the block for certain.

Lego Mindstorm®, Power Functions®, and Technic® compatible Linear Actuators. These linear actuators are self contained units which include an electric motor. They will push up to 25N and move at 12mm/s unloaded.

For use with your NXT® Brick you will need a standard NXT® connection cable to connect it in place of one of the Mindstorm® Servos, and you will need to download the Firgelli L12-NXT Block here.

For manual use with Lego Power Functions® you will require the Cable-NXT-PF available on this site. For manual use with older Lego Technic® style battery packs you will require the Cable-NXT-Technic available on this site.

Please note: The Lego Group does not endorse these products. Lego®, NXT®, Mindstorms®, Technic® and Power Functions® are trademarks of The Lego Group.

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Originally by Andrew from Trossen Robotics Blog on March 5, 2010, 1:57pm

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The trickiest part of this Superplexus 36 inch spherical puzzle isn’t getting the 5/8 inch wooden marble through the immensely complex maze, it’s convincing myself that $30,000 isn’t too much to spend for an over-sized mindgame. The majority of the track is handmade from Finnish birch (it apparently takes over 400 hours to build just one) though some sections require you to navigate the ball on 1/16-inch stainless steel wire, and if laid out in a straight line the whole course would end up being about 31 feet longer than a football field.

The labyrinth is held inside a giant acrylic sphere mounted to a stainless steel gimbaled mount allowing you to tilt it in any direction, and successfully getting the marble from the start to the finish through obstacles like stairs, sprirals and hairpin turns requires at least 425 turns (or plane changes) and a good amount of creative swearing I imagine. You can order one from Hammacher Schlemmer of course, if you’ve got 30g’s burning a hole in your pocket.

[ The Superplexus ] VIA [ The Green Head ]

Originally by Andrew Liszewski from OhGizmo! on February 11, 2010, 10:03pm

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Horizon Fuel Cell technologies has shrunk the size of Hydrogen fuel cell system, which can now be installed in R/C cars to power them. The miniature hydrogen fuel cell power system is a complete power system for high-end hobby cars. It also offers options with solar powered infrastructure that allows it to extract solar and wind power to turn water into hydrogen and store it into solid state cartridges.

The mini power system is able to output beyond a capacity of 12Wh, which is 3-4 times the endurance of conventional batteries. The electricity generated by these miniature Hydrogen fuel cell systems should be as good as what is given by conventional batteries. The kit shall start shipping sometimes in March. Watch the clip below for more information.

via ohgizmo

Written By TechChee.com, Horizon shrinks Hydrogen fuel-cell power system to power RC cars

Originally by ketyung from TechChee.com, shop online for gadget, gizmo and hot tech stuff on February 4, 2010, 6:08am

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