Awesome Miniature

You can run to the Walmart or Costco and pick up an 85″ TV. But if you think that’s overkill, perhaps TinyCircuits’ miniature TV cabinets are more your thing. The TinyTV 2 has a 1″ screen with a 216×135 resolution, while the TinyTV Mini has an even smaller 0.6″ display with a 64×64 pixel grid. They play videos uploaded to an SD card.

Photographer Joerg Daiber takes us on a trip to Munich for an aerial, tilt-shifted view of the third-largest city in Germany. Along the way, you’ll see some of the city’s parks, beaches, waterways, cafés, and industry, along with a look at a miniaturized Oktoberfest celebration.

The Build-A-Cade is a 1:6-scale arcade cabinet that works with your own Raspberry Pi 3 or 4 board. It has a tiny metal joystick and three buttons, plus 5-button joystick, trackball, and spinner control options. Its rear has an SD card slot, USB ports, and an HDMI port, while its coin door has a hidden headphone jack.

We’ve seen some big remote-controlled airplanes, but this tiny flyer sits at the opposite end of the spectrum. Joe Malinchak built this minuscule R/C tri-plane with a 1.5″ wingspan. It weighs just one gram, and in addition to its tiny motor, it has a working rudder mechanism for steering. Watch it fly at the 3-minute mark.

YouTuber Renbricks put together this hypnotic 8-minute compilation of Hot Wheels cars crashing through a miniature rally course. We enjoyed seeing the tiny crowd of spectators as each car whizzed by and came to a crash landing in the dirt.

Puffer coats are normally designed to keep you warm. But this one is designed to keep things chilled. The miniature jacket wraps around drink cans and bottles to keep them from warming up and freezing your hand. It’s even got a working zipper on front to snug it around your beverage. It just needs a tiny hat and scarf.

MR Custom Crafts created this miniature working crossbow with a design inspired by Batman. Powered by a rubber band, it can fire three tiny arrows at the same time, though we’re not sure of practical use for such a weapon unless you have three foes standing side-by-side, or you’re trying to hedge your bets on your aim.

Model maker Enos Camare created two incredibly teensy power tools that actually work. He made the 1/12-scale Makita circular saw and impact driver using 3D printed shapes he hand-finished and outfitted with tiny motors. They include cases, accessories, and manuals and need tweezers to power them on.

We live in strange times – TV sets are getting larger, yet we watch much of our video on smartphone screens. The Q went even smaller with this build – a teensy working television set with a wood and metal cabinet. He used an Apple Watch as the display, and its curved corners make it look like an old-school CRT.

Artist Michael Pederson has been placing miniature signs and dioramas around parks and other public places in Sydney, Australia. The signs help guide ants, birds, and other small creatures through their tiny worlds. The airport for pigeons is our favorite.

One of our favorite arcade games is getting the 1/6th-scale treatment by New Wave Toys. These mini machines play the original Atari ROM and have a working Trak-Ball, lighted volcano buttons, and arcade artwork. The limited-run Field-Test Edition gets a light-up marquee, prototype control panel, and a triple-slot coin door.

Ouroboros ARQ loves to build miniature structures using full-size construction techniques. For this project, they built a scale version of a suspension bridge, complete with steel-reinforced concrete pillars, and dozens of meticulously-threaded wires to support its paved roadway and guard rails.

After making a tiny McDonald’s using real-world construction materials, Ouroboros ARQ has moved on to another fast-food chain. This time, they created a mini KFC, using real bricks, concrete, wood, and even an astroturf lawn. Their construction skills are spot-on, but their paint-masking game could use a bit of work.

Mr. Michal shows off a metal truck that incorporates a multi-fire rocket launcher in its bed. Loaded up with gunpowder, it puts on quite a spectacle, but the danger level rises precipitously with the addition of ball-bearing projectiles. Yep, don’t try this at home. Leave it to the YouTube “professionals.”

The Hamster Miniature Studio 2 aka HMS2 specializes in making really tiny objects. In this video, they decided to build a tiny pair of eyeglasses. They have see-through lenses, and are hinged so they can fold. If our action figures ever have a vision problem, we know where to turn.

Setting up dominoes without knocking them down can be tricky. But these mini dominoes are so delicate they have to be set up with tweezers. One sneeze can knock them all over. FlippyCat’s record-breaking mini domino layout had 9,196 dominoes, though one section failed, and only 8,588 ultimately toppled.

For those unfamiliar with the concept, a morning star is one of those ancient weapons that’s basically a spiky metal ball on a stick. It’s definitely not something you’d want to ever encounter on a battlefield. Though this teensy version that Koss Workshop made from a ball bearing and some screws is a little less deadly.

Designers Yuma Kano and Yu Miyama came up with this clever way to keep your bicycle standing upright… using a much smaller bike. The 14″ long miniature bike is made from steel, and comes in versions for tires up to 1.6″ or 2″ wide. Unfortunately, importing one via Japan Trend Shop is a costly endeavor.

This tiny billboard lets you live out your graffiti fantasies right on your desktop. The kit is made from recycled chipboard and can be assembled in just a few minutes. Buy a bunch and create a whole bookshelf full of your own original street art. Grab ’em while you can. Sadly, its maker Boundless Brooklyn is closing up shop.

The latest Replicade mini arcade machines are based on Atari’s classic Asteroids. The 12″ tall game has an ultra-sharp display for the game’s B&W vector graphics and has every detail, including Atari’s “owl eyes” coin slots. Choose from a 3500-unit original version and a 500-unit Overhaul Edition with blue cabinet molding.

Super Impulse makes teensy replicas of classic arcade games. New for Fall 2020 are versions of BurgerTime, Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Mappy, and a special Hello Kitty Pac-Man. They’ve also got a tiny Pop-A-Shot if you’re into boardwalk basketball. Keep an eye on Amazon, Wal-Mart, and Target for these latest releases.

Miniature model maker Hoo’s mini world shows off an incredible build, a teensy version of a Leica M10 camera, complete with a removable lens. No detail was overlooked, from the curvature of the lens glass, to the leather case, to the aperture settings on its lens ring.

In the real world, we use dams to control water flow, as well as to store it, and to generate electricity. Creative Construction Channel’s miniature dam model isn’t designed to serve such world-serving purposes, but it’s a really impressive build and doubles as the coolest tabletop fountain we’ve ever seen.