Awesome Tech

The blasters in Star Wars supposedly fire bolts of plasma energy held together with a magnetic field. This sounds like pure science fiction, but Jake Makes wanted to see if he could create the same effect with a real-world weapon. While he came up with an approach that looks pretty accurate, it’s not technically the same idea at all.

Electronics and industrial design masters Teenage Engineering created the EP–133 K.O. II., a portable synth, sampler, and composer for electronic music. It offers instant sampling with 999 sample slots, six stereo voices, 12 mono voices, a high-res sequencer, real-time FX, looping, and more. Ports include stereo audio, sync, MIDI, and USB-C MIDI. In-depth demo here.

The character Killjoy in Valorant has a nifty turret weapon. Mechanical engineer Danny Lum brought the weapon to life with a custom-built robot. At its heart is an OutofDarts Proton Pack hopper connected to a Jupiter blaster. He 3D printed a custom shell and built a motorized aiming system with an object-detection camera to shoot foam balls at human targets.

Govee specializes in RGB LED light kits. Their curtain lights can display patterns on a grid of 520 teardrop-shaped light beads. The Govee mobile app includes more than 80 scene presets, music sync, and the ability to upload animated GIFs. They’re also rated IP65 waterproof so that you can use them outside. Chris Maher’s in-depth review shows them in action.

This interactive installation reminds us of the Master Control Program in TRON. But instead of displaying the face of some omniscient computer, the pixels of FLUX 2023 display images of whoever stands in front of its cameras. The 20-foot-tall display was created by Ksawery Kirklewski, with sound by Arkadiusz Krupiński and tech mgmt. by Jakub Kirklewski.

An ordinary music box only plays a single song. The Muro Box can play any song. It uses computer-controlled wheels to flick its metal forks and can be programmed using a mobile app or a MIDI device. It has a 40-note chromatic scale, and more than 50,000 songs in a downloadable library. They also make a less-expensive N20 model with 20 notes.

ViridianChase created this unique gaming computer that looks like a tank. Its case is built from metal with a digital camo pattern and tempered glass windows. It has 13 LED-lit fans, six of which simulate tread wheels. In addition to its fans, it packs NZXT Kraken 360X water cooling, an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X CPU, and an ASUS STRIX 6700XT graphics card.

We use a Keychron mechanical keyboard every day, and its build quality is unparalleled. We expect the same from their M3 Mini metal wireless mouse, which features with a skeletonized magnesium shell. Its 4000 Hz polling sensor ensures speed and accuracy up to 26,000 DPI, and it supports 2.4 GHz, Bluetooth 5.1, and USB wired connectivity.

As part of his home workstation revamp, Ideal Idea wanted a computer case like no other. The idea? Build a PC that doubles as a kinetic sculpture. He made the case from laser-cut wood panels and created two interchangeable faces. An Arduino and a stepper motor control the mechanisms. The ripple design with the hexagons is fantastic.

Screenprinting involves coating screens with chemicals, exposing the areas you want to print to light, then washing them to allow ink to flow through. xTool’s screenprinting system uses a laser to expose pre-coated screens for crisp screens in hours, not days. Price shown includes an xTool 5-watt laser. A $200 basic kit is available for other laser engravers.

The enormous OrangeStorm Giga 3D printer can output objects up to 800mm x 800mm x 1000mm (31.4″ x 31.4″ x 39.4″.) With a top speed of 300 mm/s, it prints fast and can hold up to four FDM print heads for outputting four of the same model simultaneously. Despite its size, it’s well-priced – with Kickstarter orders starting at $1500, including one print head.

Amsterdam’s Our House is a wonderland for fans of electronic music. One of their interactive installations is a wall-sized sequencer, which lets you create your own looped rhythms by pushing its buttons. Here’s a look at it being programmed to play the Eurythmics 1983 hit Sweet Dreams (Are Made of This).

Set the mood in any room with Govee’s colorful LED cube sconces. Each app-controlled cube can produce 16 million colors plus white and casts a soft beam of light up to six feet along your wall or ceiling. The set includes six wall sconces, cables, a power supply, a control box, and mounting hardware.

Here we are now; entertain us. The One Hacker Band features no humans except the man programming its servo-powered, robotic members. Crank up the volume and do the pogo dance as the animatronic musicians perform a cover of Nirvana’s Smells Like Teen Spirit.

Petru Design’s wood and metal record stand shows off your currently playing vinyl in more than one way. In addition to showing off your record sleeve, it has a built-in microphone and LED audio spectrum analyzer. The display shows colorful patterns based on your tunes and offers adjustable brightness, sensitivity, and animation modes.

This wallet-size card improves your smartphone photography, adding a bright and smooth field of light whenever you need it. It attaches wirelessly to Android phones and iPhones with MagSafe backs and can pull power via USB-C or wirelessly from phones that support power sharing. Add-ons include a stand, a diffuser, and an external battery pack.

This compact thermal printer can generate sticky notes without ink or toner. It works with Windows, Mac, Android, and iOS devices to output crisp notes with a strong but removable sticky backing. Its print mechanism flattens and cuts sheets to just the right size. Print graphics or text, to-dos from Slack, and trigger prints from thousands of apps using Zapier.

You can buy very small Bluetooth speakers already, but we’ve never seen one embedded inside a walnut. Penguin DIY nibbled on the nutmeat inside before outfitting the shell with a tiny amplifier and Bluetooth circuits, a minuscule speaker, and a rechargeable battery. We worried he would crack it while drilling holes, but the shell remained intact.

Digital clocks typically use LCD or LED screens to display the time. The Rantoge clock uses electro-mechanical components instead. Each digit on the clock is made from a set of flat metal segments, flipped into place using motorized levers. The DIY clock kit blew through its funding goal on Japan’s Machi-Ya crowdfunding site and is heading into production now.

With this 112-bit driver kit from iFixit, you’ll never be caught without the proper tool for opening gadgets. It comes with 1/4″ and 4mm bit driver handles with magnetic bit sockets, knurled grips, swivel tops, and high-quality bits made from S2 and 6150 steel. And if anything ever breaks, it’s covered by iFixit’s lifetime warranty.

After Matty Benedetto got his hands on a large-bed Creality 3D printer, he wanted to create something that could only be made on such a device. His plan? Create a life-size sculpture of himself that greets visitors when they come to his studio. It took a lot of time and filament to produce his plastic avatar, but the result was worth it.

No matter how much we’ve wanted one, Mattel never made a real-world Hoverboard like the one in Back to the Future II. JLaserVideo built a working hoverboard that can float a couple of inches off the ground. After exploring various kinds of levitation technology and their limitations, he settled on a design that works like an upside-down air hockey table.

This retro-inspired bluetooth speaker from Bumpboxx looks like a gigantic cassette tape in the shape of a boombox. It has two 5.25″ mid-bass drivers and four 2″ tweeters, and its amplifier outputs up to 175 watts and it comes with a wireless mic for karaoke sessions. It comes in white, red, yellow, neon blue, black, and magenta.