Awesome Mechanical

Check out this amazing bit of arcade history. This 1973 SEGA Moto Champ machine had no screens, buttons, or a joystick. The electro-mechanical racing game had a group of magnetically-attached motorcycles which rolled over a treadmill-style “road,” as a spinning cylinder cast images onto the moving mat.

Inspired by this earlier design, this coffee table lets you play a mechanical version of the classic Atari arcade game. It packs USB charging ports and a Bluetooth speaker as well. It’s available with matching ottomans, and in coin-op arcade table and cocktail styles.

Take a look at the video, and you’ll swear that these balls are spinning in a circular orbit. But look more closely, and you’ll see that each ball is moving along a perfectly straight path. The mechanical model is based on a design by 16th century Italian poymath Girolamo Cardano.

Design collective onformative shows off a nifty mechanical sculpture they created, which uses a series of spinning black metal tubes which allow light from an array of fluorescent bulbs to pass through. The result is a binary pixel display with an alluring soundtrack. More here.

Up for a fun and challenging project with a satisfying result? Look no further than this wooden model of a London-style double decker bus. Once you assemble all 216 laser-cut parts, you’ll have a working vehicle that can actually move up to 12 feet on rubber band power.

While mechanical metronomes have gone the way of the dinosaur for most, we still find these old school rhythm keepers fascinating. Mr. Smith’s LEGO Models shows off a build which uses Technic parts to replicate the functionality, complete with an adjustable interval.

To prove just how versatile cardboard can be, Houston-based Victory Packaging turned up to a tradeshow with a 16-foot-tall gear-driven sculpture reminiscent of the space travel portals from Stargate. This isn’t the only time they built something awesome with cardboard.

Flat-pack wooden model maker UGEARS presents 11 awesome new creations, each of which features gear and rubber band mechanisms. The new models include a wind-up horse, windmill, stagecoach, flying aircraft contraption, big rig, steam train, and more.

A superbly challenging wood and acrylic puzzle box for storing away small keepsakes. It features a complicated locking mechanism which requires each of its parts to be moved in an exact sequence to access its contents. Solution at 1:46.

If you thought The Citadel was complex, check out builder Samuel Hunt’s insanely complex K’NEX ball machine. It’s made from over 50,000 pieces, has 6 networks, 33 paths, and 13 lifts. It took him nearly 2 years to construct and film all of its paths and mechanisms.

3DSage got their hands on this nifty mechanical device from Japan – it’s a hand-operated gadget which follows the outlines of a stack of disks to move its arm, which in turn draws a corresponding image. A web-based conversion tool is used to design disk templates.

Most digital displays are completely solid state, with no moving parts. But check out these nifty (and noisy) Alfa Zeta 7-segment displays from FlipDots, which look digital, but use magnetic fields to change states. Check out more cool FlipDot demonstrations here and here.

Cube puzzle guru Tony Fisher decided to see how the insane 17x17x17 Yuxin Huang Long puzzle is put together, so he cracked it open to reveal the thousands of pieces which go into its assembly. Now it’s a whole new kind of puzzle to try and put it back together.

Watchfinder & Co. provides an up close look at one of the cooler wristwatches out there, the A. Lange & Söhne Zeitwerk, which features a numeric display, but uses a mechanical movement to flip its digits. Also, we’ve been using the word “digital” wrong all this time.

The cushions seem a bit on the tall side when used as a couch, but we’re still impressed with the engineering behind Bonbon’s convertible piece of furniture that goes from sofa to bunk beds in just seconds.

We’re not sure that spinning around your food on multiple axes like this helps it cook any faster or more efficiently, but you’ve got to hand it to whoever built this crazy grill has a creative mind and masterful build skills. Video via Weber Foods.

A demonstration of a ridiculously complicated wooden puzzle box, which requires numerous maneuvers such as rotating and sliding boxes in and out, and twisting keys and knobs to unlock its deepest compartment. We’d love to see a build video of this thing.

We’ve seen metal miniature kits before, but never ones like these. Time 4 Machine’s big selling point is that their detailed models are mechanical. The wind-up cabrio and tank actually drive, the clock tells time (for an hour), and you can actually play the table hockey game.

There’s something about the high-pitched sound of the scannner stepper motor that suits itself so well to Gorillaz Feel Good Inc., it now takes its place as our favorite cover track from Paweł Zadrożniak’s electromechanical orchestram, beating out The Final Flopdown.

This could be the most complicated clock ever built. We cannot imagine the engineering involved in getting all of its gears, pulleys, and pendulums to work together to tell time. Mark Frank and Buchanan’s masterpiece has been under construction for over a decade.

Beyond the Brick shows off Claus-Marc Hahn’s astounding model of the Red Keep from Game of Thrones. He used over 125,000 bricks, and a multiple EV3 servo motors to mechanize the build, so the whole thing turns, its towers move up and down, and their cupolas spin.

A thorougly clever design for a sign which can transform from reading “open” to “closed” while fully concealing the letters which are currently not in use. You can download the designs to 3D print your own over on Thingiverse.

Fans of Super Mario Bros. will immediately recognize this obnoxious bit of vegetation as a Piranha Plant. Jason from JK Brickworks brought the creature to life in mechanized LEGO form, complete with a motor drive to pop the plant up and down from a pipe as it chomps its jaws.