Awesome Awesome

Repairing watches requires precision and a steady hand. It also helps if the part that you’re working on isn’t moving around. This video from luxury watch shop Phigora and watchmaker Henry Lyy shows a nifty little gadget that uses hundreds of tiny posts to clamp irregular items in place. If you’re looking to buy one, we found some for sale on AliExpress.

Ever wondered how they shoot those super smooth videos that circle around a fast-moving car? This clip from the crew at motionstate shows how technology and talent come together to work cinematic magic. Director Corey Koniniec is running the show from behind the controls of a Nodofilm remote camera rig in their Porsche Cayenne Turbo arm car.

Enjoy the suspension travel of a UTV but prefer watersports? Custom built by Shadow Six Racing, the Typhoon combines a Polaris RZR off-road vehicle with a pair of supercharged jet skis for high-speed thrills on the water. Despite its $250,000 price tag, its maker already has more than 250 reservations for the 800-horsepower titanium and carbon fiber beast.

While this miniature Winnebago won’t take you cross-country, it is still totally awesome. Built by Travis Moore of Toy Factory Fabrication, the Minibago was built atop a Yamaha G29 golf cart and has fun features like remote-controlled water cannons and trucker air horns. Kathryn from the YouTube travel channel Mark & Kathryn got an up-close tour of this adorable thing.

Sony shows off a prototype of its incredible Microsurgery Assistance Robot by performing surgery on a single kernel of corn. Its tiny robotic arms are controlled remotely by a surgeon, replicating their movements at 1/2 to 1/10 scale using the robot’s precision motors. The surgeon can observe the microscopic procedure via a stereoscopic OLED viewer.

If you need to re-pave a street, you typically need to reduce lanes and redirect traffic around the construction site. Switzerland’s Federal Roads Office (FEDRO) shows us a modern method for resurfacing that directs traffic over the work zone by erecting a temporary bridge. The modular ASTRA flyover bridge can be driven into place to minimize setup time.

After seeing an illustration of a mime wielding an invisible sword, maker Mike Shake was inspired to build one in real life. While his see-through katana isn’t completely invisible, it’s still an incredibly cool and effective weapon. Mike’s opponents will never see what hit them. After considering using a glass blade, he went with a clear and strong polycarbonate.

Scott Sloan builds 1:6-scale digital pinball machines that are fully playable. The 3D-printed systems can play many games using Visual Pinball X and are powered by a GMK 5105 mini-computer. They have a 7″ playfield and a 5″ backglass display. Want one? Contact Scott on Facebook. Glen’s Retro Show has a demo video here. Images courtesy of Scott Sloan.

For many years, prosthetics have been primitive, static objects. Thanks to modern biotechnology, people facing lost limbs can look forward to devices like this brain-controlled robotic arm from Esper Bionics. It has independently-moving fingers, a swiveling wrist, and the ability to perform fine-grained actions like picking up a knife and cutting with it.

Research Fellow and Imagineer Lanny Smoot is only the second Disney cast member to be inducted into the National Inventors Hall of Fame. The first was Walt Disney. In this video, Lanny shows off a few of his incredible creations, including an amazing interactive “Holotile” floor that moves beneath your feet.

Iron Man had armor that was able to fix itself after a fight. JLaservideo took a stab at making real-world armor pieces that heal themselves after being heated, thanks to Nitinol – a nickel-titanium alloy with the ability to return to a programmed shape after being bent. The material is expensive and hard to work with, but Tony Stark could afford it.

Kenta Gomazaki loves to spend his time outdoors. To enhance his experience, he outfits metal gear boxes with equipment for making coffee, cooking, and serving food. His Instagram channel is filled with his wonderful creations, each is packed with unique Japanese gear for enjoying outdoor living. Kenta’s setup videos are fun and inspiring, too.

The SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket can land back on Earth after lifting payloads into space. Project Horizon has now replicated this impressive engineering feat on a much smaller scale. It’s hard enough to keep a model rocket balanced as it launches, let alone being capable of a controlled descent like this. It took 32 test flights to get it right. Onboard footage here.

After losing his left eye to cancer as a child, Brian Stanley started wearing prosthetic eyeballs. More recently, he turned lemons into lemonade by fabricating a series of light-up eyeballs, including one that’s bright enough to be used as a flashlight. He’s also made a titanium cyborg eye that makes him look like a Terminator.

Musician Carolina Eyck is one of the best theremin players of all time. Her nuanced arrangement of Ennio Morricone’s The Ecstacy of Gold is a thing of beauty, a musical Cowboys & Aliens, if you will. Only Carolyn’s performance is significantly more entertaining than that movie.

For the art installation, Colapso in Bilbao, Spain, SpY created this simple yet effective display. Sitting inside a cube, a 10-meter balloon gradually inflated over four days. When the balloon burst, it revealed it was filled with colored smoke. The cloud lingered for only a few seconds but produced the perfect red sphere captured in this slow-motion video.