Awesome Weird

Most kitchen timers are pretty boring. But maker VALiMA wanted something unique and modern, so they set out to create a high-tech timer that looks more like a weapon from a science fiction movie than something you’d have lying around your kitchen utility drawer. We love the clicky sounds it makes as it spins.

This yucky blob looks like something your dog might leave on the grass, but it’s actually a liquid robot that can be controlled by a human. AsapSCIENCE speaks with Professor Li Zhang to learn about his team’s so-called slime robot, how it works, and its potentially life-saving applications.

This video starts out like many other TikTok and Instagram clips – a beautiful, bikini-clad girl on a beach snapping selfies. But it soon turns to terror as model and singer Tara Coai places a 360º camera in her mouth, capturing a distorted perspective that makes her look like a monster straight out of Attack on Titan. More horror here.

The always informative and compelling vlogger Tom Scott visited Engineering Arts to check out their work in humanoid robotics. What he was greeted by was a mechanical doppelgänger the team built, which Tom commissioned to deliver sponsor’s messages on his behalf.

Ricoh’s unusual Penta-X robot set a new world record for the most robot jumps in one minute. This waddle of five of conjoined penguinbots jumped rope 170 times in a row, and charmed their way into our hearts at the same time. Of course they have a long way to go to beat this human.

Animator Master Tingus loves to create brief cartoons which generally start out with an animal or a person, but turn strange and unexpected as the motion starts. In addition to this compilation video, we recommend checking out their TikTok and Instagram channels for much more weirdness.

Guitarists have all kinds of effects pedals to choose from, adding echo, harmonics, warbles, and other sounds to their music. But as far as we know, this is the first pedal that turns every note you play into a fart. It even lets you adjust the gas output and toggle between wet and dry flatulence.

Is your finger flick underpowered? Worry no longer! Thanks to The Q, there’s now a solution for weak finger flickers. The maker designed and fabricated a metal cover that gives his middle finger an extra boost of power thanks to a spring-loaded mechanism. This must be killer for paper football games.

Usually, you have to stand in line at an amusement park if you want to go on a thrill ride. But with this rolling car you can spin yourself silly in the comfort of your own driveway. You can buy one for yourself on Alibaba if you dare. And there’s no way this thing is street-legal, so don’t even try.

So let’s say you’re drying clothes outside of your window, and a shirt blows onto a ledge you can’t reach. Well, if you’re this clever person in Hangzhou, China, you enlist the help of a mitten crab to rappel down to the shirt and retrieve it for you like a living claw machine.

Well, here’s something you don’t see every day – fish singing opera. In the CG animated film Turbopera, a school of rather strange-looking marine life gets together after the fish market closes for a dramatic performance of Verdi’s La Traviata. Will they live to sing another day?

Described as a “Slow-life town destruction game,” DEEEER Simulator invites players to frolic about for a leisurely stroll or wreak havoc and destroy the place. After watching the trailer, we still have no idea what’s going on, but we need to play this. Coming to PlayStation, Xbox, and Switch. It’s on Steam Early Access for PC too.

Tired of looking at the same view, day after day? Perhaps you should do what Vojin Kusic did, and build a house on top of a turntable. He constructed this unusual house in northern Bosnia so that his wife could always enjoy a different view. It can spin as slow as one rotation per 24 hours to a dizzying one rotation every 22 seconds.

From creepy music to jump scares, horror movies are filled with clichés. Certainly, there’s enough source material out there for an AI bot to write its own horror movie by now, right? Netflix enlisted humorist Keaton Patti to train a bot with over 400,000 hours of horror movies, then asked it to write its own script.

The scene in Beetlejuice where the Maitland’s possess the dinner party and make their unwanted houseguests sing “Day-O” is a classic. Now imagine if the same thing happened to a school of Big Mouth Billy Basses, and you’d have this video. You’re welcome.

Shoulder pads, bell-bottoms, and slap bracelets are a few of the sillier fashion trends we can think of, but as BlueJay’s video points out, those are just the tip of the iceberg when it comes to the kinds of stupid fads that gained popularity over the years. It’s only a matter of time before the Macaroni look makes a comeback.

Most cars only steer with their front wheels. But this strange three-wheeled vehicle turns all of its wheels whenever its driver turns its steering crank. It’s not as fancy as NASA’s Modular Robotic Vehicle but we’re pretty sure this guy’s build budget was substantially smaller. Original video by Douyin user wo583582429.

Could you use a vacation? Perhaps a trip to Convergence Station is in order. But when we say “a trip” we mean, like on acid. Andreas Nilsson’s short starts out as a retro travel promo but quickly descends into madness as its true destination is revealed. All aboard!

It takes skill to balance on a unicycle, but even if you’re an expert, we don’t recommend using power tools at the same time. That didn’t stop Mike Taylor from weed whacking his lawn while riding on his one-wheeler. Mike’s backyard antics are contrasted by a more graceful demo by fellow unicyclist Marie Schlenker.

Fractal art can be beautiful, hypnotic, and colorful. But with the proper arrangement of pixels, these mathematical patterns can also be dark and downright unsettling. Motion designer Chris Lavelle’s short fractal animation Creation 1 is especially disturbing, especially for those who suffer from trypophobia.

We’re no strangers to weird internet videos and short films. In this video essay from Now You See It, they explore the visual splendor and surprising depth that comes along with bizarre classics like Don’t Hug Me I’m Scared, Don Hertzfeldt’s Rejected, and the ubiquitous Oogachaka Baby.

Developed by Madnetic Games, this unique sim game sends you on a global hunt as a wildlife photographer. It features photorealistic scenery and animals to shoot (with your lens). As they build their photo skills, players collect camera gear and sell their photos to magazines. Add it to your Steam wishlist.

After his animations started to crash Adobe After Effects, Cyriak decided to create his own animation system. Naturally, the results are as hilariously weird as you’d expect from the famed surrealist animator.