Awesome Awesome

We’ve built our share of LEGO models over the years, but we’re nowhere nearly as obsessed with the bricks as Jordan aka Bricksie is. In this video, he shows off his collection, which includes a massive LEGO city in the center of the room, surrounded by hundreds of LEGO cars, spaceships, and sculptures filling his bookshelves.

Long before Disney owned Star Wars, their theme parks dabbled in sci-fi action with Star Tours, a 1987 attraction that simulated a flight to Endor. So after his daughter requested a Disneyland-themed birthday party, the World’s Greatest Dad built her a low-budget replica of the motion sim using original video and audio from the ride.

This impressive LEGO Technic vehicle uses 16 Mindstorms EV3 controllers and 48 motors to drive its tank-like treads along the ground. Its builder, Eric Steenstra says it can tow over 220 pounds, so he likes to use it to pull people in their wheelchairs.

Normally, if you want a mural on your wall, you need to paint it. But the guys at Russia’s Cool Print SPB have a computer-controlled rig that does all the hard work. The machine rides on rails and then moves along the wall like a gigantic inkjet printer, outputting large-scale, full-color images. Longer tracks = wider images.

Scientists from Russia’s ITMO University have developed a technique that uses lasers to create different colors on a sheet of metal. The laser is used to create oxide layers on a sheet of titanium, producing a variety of colors. The method can even be used to change or erase images multiple times. Read more in Optica.

Ferrofluid is a special kind of liquid that’s attracted to magnetic poles. DAKD Jung shows off an awesome custom-built speaker that takes advantage of this property to propel and direct ferrofluid to the beat of the music. A second video shows off how it works. It’s basically the Lava Lamp 2.0… and we want one.

This amazing and colorful accent light has a structure made up of full-color LED light strips, set into a cube of one-way mirrored acrylic panels. The result is the coolest infinity lamp we’ve ever seen. It works with a companion mobile app to adjust its lighting effects and has a sound-reactive mode. Comes in 10″ and 15″ sizes.

There’s something immensely satisfying about this video of the SANOVO OptiBreaker, a specialized assembly line machine which ingests over 200,000 eggs hourly, gently cracks each one, then separates the whites from the yolks. It also can wash itself automatically.

Filmmaker Jan van Ijken captured this amazing microscopic scale time-lapse footage of the development of an amphibious alpine newt. Watch in awe as it grows from a single cell to a complete organism in just 6 minutes. More here.

Among performance artist Darrell Thorne’s bag of tricks is an illusion where he makes each half of his face with a different persona and uses a mirror to reflect the other half. His lip-synced performance of Billie Eilish’s track Therefore I Am features a split-personality where one half is a devil and the other is a bit more angelic.

What do you do when you love your house, but it’s not in the right location? Simple. Put it on a flatbed truck and move it. That’s what recently happened in San Francisco, as a team of expert building relocators moved the Englander House, a 139-year-old, 6-bedroom Victorian-era home, to its new location, six blocks away.

Most airplanes need a decent amount of runway, but there’s a class of planes known as STOL (Short Takeoff and Landing) which don’t need much space at all. Thanks to strong headwinds, pilot Jon Bush was able to land this experimental SQ12 Super Cub on zero feet of runway along Alaska’s Knik River. Be sure to watch the takeoff video.

CG artist pwnisher challenged his followers and fellow artists to come up with a short render based on a basic template that he provided. 125 artists responded, each offering their own very different take on the provided source image of a character walking toward a mountain.

Nature photographers John Downer Productions flew a realistic, robotic hummingbird deep into a forest packed with hundreds of millions of monarch butterflies. The drone captured amazing footage of the swarm as they awoke from their long winter’s nap in Mexico. From the BBC Series Spy in the Wild.

This fan-built LEGO Godzilla is truly impressive. It took Frenchy Bricks Junky about 4 months to put together this 4,000-piece monster, with its awesome scaly texture. You can purchase the building plans from Rebrickable for about $20 – bricks not included, naturally.

Computer scientists from Google, MIT, and UC Berkeley have developed incredible image correction software that uses artificial intelligence to remove or soften unwanted shadows and harsh highlights from faces without affecting other naturally-occurring shadows. Read more about the tech on the project’s website.

Artist Roman Booteen is a master at modifying vintage coins, engraving intricate details and augmenting them with added depth. His most impressive design is this 1921 U.S. Dollar coin with a mechanical hand that grips a sword in its center when a hidden button is pushed. He also makes some amazing lighters.

Nursing homes have been on a lonely lockdown for months. Robert Speker, activities coordinator for the UK’s Sydmar Lodge care home, decided to entertain residents by recreating famous LP covers with their photos. All funds from their GoFundMe campaign benefit Alzheimers Society, Age UK, and Dementia Friends.

Not too long ago, Colin Furze built himself an incredibly rad, incredibly capable homebrew screw tank. But one thing that it couldn’t do that some military-grade screw tanks can do is float on water. So he’s back to make some mods to improve the balance and buoyancy of his ride, in an attempt to make it seaworthy.

As we learned previously, Dalibor Farný is a true master of the craft of making nixie tubes. In this clip, he shows off the process of making a large, custom tube, that instead of displaying digits, glows with the logo of his client, Keysight Technologies. We want one with The Awesomer logo now!

Korean artist Hoo’s Mini World is an expert at creating sculptures using a 3D drawing pen, along with sanding and carving. In this in-depth video, watch as they build an insanely detailed motorcycle model, which took about three months to complete. More images on Instagram.

Builder Colin Furze shows off one of his craziest vehicles ever, a hydraulic tank that moves across the earth using giant screw threads. It’s the great destroyer of lawns, and makes a horribly muddy mess, but is surprisingly agile and powerful. Check out Colin’s build videos here.

CG artist pedro3dbh’s short film sends us on an epic journey deep within the most mundane of objects, the tip of an ordinary ball-point pen. As the virtual camera zooms deeper and deeper into its structure, we eventually reach the subatomic level.

LEGO Technic machine expert The Brick Wall created an amazing working sawmill that turns long logs into individual pieces of firewood. The wood is delivered on the back of a LEGO truck, then the factory cuts the wood into smaller logs, then splits them into quarters, ready for lighting.

When an airplane encounters just the right weather conditions, its wingtips and propellers can generate visible patterns in the air. Redditor cburnett shared this wild footage of the patterns made by the four props on a Hercules C-130. A google search for “propeller vortexes” turns up more incredible images of the phenomenon.

While Antiques Roadshow was visiting West Fargo, ND’s Bonanzaville, a U.S. Air Force veteran stopped by with a Rolex Oyster Cosmograph watch he purchased in the 1970s for about $350. While that was a lot of money back then, his investment truly paid off, especially since he never wore it, and saved all of the original paperwork.