The objects above are remarkably ornate baby rattles/ teething toys, as crafted by a master silversmith. They are attributed to Nicholas Roosevelt, an 18th-century American craftsman, and are now part of the collection of the Metropolitan Museum of Art.
This rare and precious gold toy, with its elaborate chased and repoussé ornament, might have been given as a lavish christening gift. It consists of a whistle, a piece of teething coral, six of the original eight bells, and a loop to hang a toy on a ribbon around the child’s neck. Aside from being a teething device, the coral in the whistle and bells was thought to ward off enchantment and disease.
One can’t help but wonder if creations such as this had some influence on the development of the idiom “bells and whistles” to describe supplementary showy functions.
Link, via Titam et le Sirop d’Érable.
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Don’t throw away that used subway ticket! You could be holding a potential starfighter in your hands.
Artist Hubert de Lartigue was playing with his Paris Métro ticket between stops, folding it this way and that, wondering how he could give it a cool shape. He did this for six months, and discovered that with a scalpel and a folding tool, but no glue, he could transform two subway tickets into an X-wing fighter.
Lartigue says:
“I’m very proud of how it turned out and I feel like I am the author of a little masterpiece. I got to the point where I asked myself whether the Parisian metro tickets hadn’t actually been designed to enable me to one day use it as a canvas for this ‘work.’ Their proportions and even the patterns and drawings on them take part in the whole of the work. I’m not kidding, I find that there is a great underlying mystery here…”
He gives step-by-step directions for making an X-wing starfighter here.
More about Paris subway tickets and the history of the Paris Métro here.
Photo by Hubert de Lartigue
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Kaba Kick is a toy available in…well, somewhere in East Asia, presumably. It’s like Russian roulette, but for kids:
The player points the gun at his or her own head and pulls the trigger. Instead of bullets, a pair of feet kick out from the barrel (which is shaped like a pink hippo). If the gun doesn’t fire, the player earns points.
What could possibly go wrong?
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Magic Frog to Prince – $3.95
Here’s a kitschy gift idea for Valentine’s Day: a frog in a cup that magically transforms into a prince after you add a little bit of water!
Or, if you want to give the guy in your life a gift he’ll never forget, give ‘em this: the Arrogant Bastard and Double Bastard beer bottle tumblers.
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Atari
Joystick Gum - $3.95
Ah, remember Atari? Now you can ruminate the good ol' days of video games by chewing on this Atari Joystick Gum (comes with a collector tin shaped like the retro controller).
From the Neatorama Shop: Link | More Offbeat Mints & Candies
Back in Stock:
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The Lady and the Unicorn is a 15th Century Flemish tapestry, often said to be one of the greatest works of medieval European art. Artist Joey Syta copied the work in Lite Brite — an illuminated toy popular in the United States since its introduction in the 1960s. It’s called My Only Desire and is composed of 55,000 pegs.
Link via Gizmodo | Photo: Joey Syta
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YouTube user brusspup is fond of creating optical illusions. We’ve recently featured one that looks like two lug nuts. His latest is this Pac-Man scene painted on the walls of a house.
via Urlesque
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It seems like everyone is getting in the farming mode these days. Forget Modern Warfare 2, let Tobuscus show you where the true gaming action is!
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In First Person Tetris, when you rotate a block, you rotate the entire game! By the time you think you’ve figured it out, the dizziness begins to set in. It’s quite addicting. Link -via Boing Boing
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If you’ve ever been to Retro Sabotage (featured previously at Neatorama), then you know Mario Jumping will not be like any other Mario game you’ve ever played. The payoff is well worth the effort. Link -Thanks, Tof!
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YouTube user jeremiahjw has some compelling slow motion videos of stuff blowing up. Not buildings or robots, although he does compare himself to Michael Bay. The focus of his spendid ’splosions is small stuff like the toy cars above, a variety of outdated gadgets, and most eloquently, Mr. Potato Head. All set to wonderful, happy music.
About the embedded video:
The cars I used were “off brand” cars and Matchbox. The yellow truck was a Hotwheels, the only one to survive un-damaged. Filmed on the Casio EX-F1 at 600fps. One shot is at 1,200fps near the end.
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The experimental Quest to Learn School in New York City opened last September. In the hopes of preparing students for high-tech careers, it teaches students almost entirely though video games:
This year’s 72-student class is split into four groups that rotate through five courses during the day: Codeworlds (math/English), Being, Space and Place (social studies/English), The Way Things Work (math/science), Sports for the Mind (game design), and Wellness (health/PE). Instead of slogging through problem sets, students learn collaboratively in group projects that require an understanding of subjects in the New York State curriculum. The school’s model draws on 30 years of research showing that people learn best when they’re in a social context that puts new knowledge to use. Kids learn more by, say, pretending to be Spartan spies gathering intel on Athens than by memorizing facts about ancient Greece.
Most sixth-graders don’t expect to ever need to identify integers, but at Quest, it’s the key to a code-breaking game. In another class, when creatures called Troggles needed help moving heavy objects, the class made a video instructing how long a ramp they should build to minimize the force they needed to apply. “They’re picking concepts up as well as, if not better than, at other schools,” says Quest’s math and science teacher Ameer Mourad. Beyond make-believe, Quest is the first middle school to teach videogame design. Salen says building games teaches students about complex systems, which will prepare them for growing fields such as bioinformatics.
Link via Fast Company | Official Website | Photo: Claudio Midolo
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Mario
Question Block Coin Candy - $3.95
You never know what you'll get from a question block in the video game Super Mario Bros., but there's no question here. You'll get awesome coin-shaped candies from Boston America's Mario Question Block Coin Candy.
The candy, licensed from Nintendo, comes in a collectible metal tin and is now available from the Neatorama Shop: Link
More Super Mario Bros. themed stuff from the Neatorama Shop:
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Super
Mario Bros. Mushroom Tin - $3.45 |
Mario
Bros. Super Star Candy - $2.95 |
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Going old school in the geekiest way possible, Windell Oskay at Evil Mad Scientist Laboratories has built a non-video version of Pong. The process of building it is posted as well. Link
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1949: A SPUD IS BORN Brooklyn-born toy inventor George Lerner tries to capitalize on kids who like to play with their food. Surprisingly, Lerner's idea of creating face and body parts that can be jabbed into potatoes is a hard sell. Toy companies worry that parents who've just lived through World War II-era food shortages will balk at the thought of wasting perfectly good food. 1952: THE TUBER SPREADS Hasbro sees the genius in Lerner's product and agrees to market it, creating the first-ever TV ads for a toy. It turns out that parents have few misgivings about squandering their potatoes; more than 1 million Mr. Potato Heads sell that year alone.
1950s: FAMILY MAN Mr. Potato Head gets an arranged marriage. In 1953, Hasbro outfits him with an instant family: Mrs. Potato Head, son Spud, and a daughter, Yam. He also gets a car, a boat, and a kitchen in the deal. Within a few years, the likable Spud makes friends with pal Katie the Carrot and Pete the Pepper. 1964 & 1974: ATTACK OF THE ROTTEN POTATOES When parents complain about finding moldy potatoes under their kids' beds, Mr. Potato Head ditches his organic body for a plastic one. Ten years later, new rules about choking hazards compel Hasbro to merge the head and body into one legless lump.
Mr. Potato Head trades his dapper hat for a green baseball cap and exchanges his loafers for blue tennis shoes. In keeping with his new, sportier look, he also quits smoking in 1987 for the American Cancer Society's Great American Smokeout. To show his support for the anti-smoking campaign, he publicly hands over his signature tobacco pipe to U.S. Surgeon General C. Everett Koop. 1992: FRIES ON THE SIDE
1995: SUPERSIZED Mr. Potato Head makes his big-screen debut in Toy Story, the first film ever made using only computer-generated imagery. But perhaps his most prestigious gig is yet to come. In 2000, Mr. Potato Head becomes the official travel ambassador for Rhode Island, "the Birthplace of Fun," where Hasbro is headquartered. |
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The article above appeared in the Jan - Feb 2010 issue of mental_floss magazine. It is reprinted here with permission. Don't forget to feed your brain by subscribing to the magazine and visiting mental_floss' extremely entertaining website and blog today!
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Matthias Wandel used LEGO Technic parts to build a machine that distributes dominoes in rows. His website is filled with other similar gadgets, most of which are made out of wood.
Link via Make | Wandel’s Wooden Machines
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What do you get when you cross a pixel-y Italian plumber with some rapidly-falling tetrominoes? Tuper Tario Tros., of course. It’s like regular Mario, except you’ll encounter some obstacles that you’re going to need help surmounting. That’s when you’ll need to toggle to Tetris and use the shapes to help. Have fun!
Link via Geekologie.
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We’ve previously mentioned the full-size house made out of LEGO blocks by UK television host James May. It was demolished shortly after the completion of construction, but in this video, you can see what it was like to live inside of it. May attempted to shower, shave, and go to sleep in the house and learned that LEGO might not be an ideal building material.
via Geekologie
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Artist Marshall Astor made a functional Rubik’s Cube out of bronze. He describes how the Cube is designed and how this complicated a project that would use plastic parts to move metal pieces. Astor also mused philosophical on the project:
In making a Rubik’s Cube with undifferentiated sides, I was attempting to remove the concept of solving or of having a purpose or goal from the Cube. I wanted to create an object that better reflected my own feelings about the Rubik’s Cube, and in a broader sense, about the fundamental nature of the Universe. I view the Universe – or all observable phenomena – to be a purely subjective concept, best defined as the intersecting agreement between all potential subjectivities. The Cube functions as a receiving object, by denuding it of it’s role as a puzzle, it becomes a more intellectually malleable object, and the physical action of operating the Cube has a more personal meaning.
Well, aside from that, what I found most interesting about the article was how the seemingly simple Rubik’s Cube is actually a very complex machine that is not easily duplicated in a medium other than plastic. You’ll find more pictures and a comprehensive guide to how he made it (including patination with his own urine) at the link.
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Pong Prom is a video game/art project developed by Ed Keeble modeled on the 1972 video game Pong. Users were special hoodies with display panels on the front. They control the paddles by moving their partners back and forth in a slow-dancing motion:
The project uses the Lilypad Arduino platform to control game play, run the display, and communicate between devices. Patches of conductive fabric on the shoulders, hips, and cuffs of the shirts are used to create a serial connection between the Arduinos. An accelerometer attached at the back of the neck allows each player to control their game paddle by rocking their partner back and forth.
In the links, you can find a video demonstrating the system.
Link via Technabob | Video Demonstration | Photo: Department of Covert Athletics
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Laboratory-grade measuring instruments can be pricey, but some enterprising scientists are finding that the Nintendo Wii controller can serve as an alternative:
The Wiimote can track just about anything: All that’s needed is an LED light. Hydrologist Willem Luxemburg of Delft University of Technology in the Netherlands demonstrated a hacked water-level sensor made from a Wiimote and a plastic boat at the meeting of the American Geophysical Union here Monday.
“Just switch it on and make sure it doesn’t get wet,” Luxemburg said.
Luxemburg’s team aimed the Wiimote at a problem that can be very tricky for hydrologists: measuring evaporation on a body of water. The easiest way to measure evaporation is to place pans of water near the lake, or whatever water is being studied, and put pressure sensors in them. The sensors record the drop in pressure as more and more water disappears. But this equipment can run $500 or more, and still the measurements aren’t accurate because the water in the pan gets warmer on land than it would in the lake. Alternatively, measuring the level of water in a pan that is floating in a lake is also tricky because the pan will inevitably be moving.
The Wiimote could overcome the evaporation-measurement problems. It has a tri-axial accelerometer and a high-resolution, high-speed infrared camera, which can sense movement with better than 1 millimeter accuracy.
Link via Make | Photo: Betsy Mason/Wired
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California man, Erik Estavillo, is suing Activision Blizzard, makers of World of Warcraft, for one million dollars because he claims the slow game pace is designed to take the player longer to get where he needs to go. He says the slow game pace is causing him anxiety, agoraphobia, depression and Crohn’s Disease.
Lest you think that was the highlight of the suit, just wait until you hear the witnesses he is calling on his behalf: Winona Ryder and Martin Lee Gore, the founder of Depeche Mode. He thinks Winona’s interest in Catcher In The Rye makes her qualified to discuss alienation and that Gore’s songs make him an expert in alienation because he is “sad, lonely and alienated, as can be seen in the songs he writes.”
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We all have to keep up with the times, and the classic arcade game Whac-A-Mole is no exception. Inventor Tim Hunkin found what could be the best villain for the game ever: bankers!
Mr Hunkin said the game was "proving very popular."
"I keep having to replace worn-out mallets," he said. "The bankers are bald and all look the same because that’s how I think people see bankers, as faceless."
Players, who are promised a "truly rewarding banking experience", pay 40p to hit as many bankers as they can in 30 seconds. When a customer wins a voice says: "You win. We retire. Thank you very much to the taxpayer for paying our pensions."
Link | Tim Hunkin’s website | Making of Whack-a-Banker
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Kind of like the guy a few years ago who synced his Christmas lights to Trans Siberian Orchestra’s Wizards in Winter, here we have Guitar Hero as the theme.
What do you get when you mix a Christmas Light show with Guitar Hero? Christmas Light Hero! A real game you play with a wii wireless guitar controller. Optional TV screen is available if you get in trouble, but if you use the screen, you don’t get your name in the high score list.
Song: “Cliffs of Dover” by Eric Johnson.
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What do you get when you mix Twitter with toddlers? Behold the Twoddler, a tricked-out Fisher Price Activity Center that lets toddlers send pre-arranged tweets to friends and family:
… the Twoddler, a tricked-out Fisher Price Activity Center with pictures of family members and friends attached and an Arduino board inside.
When a child presses a certain picture for a select amount of time, software captures sensor data from the activity center and selects and sends a predefined text related to that data.
For example, when Bobby plays with Mom’s picture for more than three minutes, a Twitter message will post to Bobby’s personal Twitter account saying, "@mommy_bobby Bobby misses mommy and looks forward playing with her this evening" (or as the messages get more refined and personalized: "@mommy_bobby Bobby is having a temper tantrum and wants mommy home now."
It even won at the 2009 Innovative and Creative Applications competition: Link | INCA Award 2009 – via Wired’s Gadget Lab
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The photo-realistic plastic soldier figurine is actually a contestant from a cosplay competition at a comic con in Lucca, Italy. That’s all that I have right now, but I’ll update this post as more information filters into the geekosphere.
Link via Geekologie | Lucca Comics & Games 2009
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An archaeological investigation in Akron, Ohio has uncovered the first mass-produced toy Santa Claus in the United States. The figurine is 2.5 inches tall, dressed in blue, and was recovered amidst thousands of marbles and penny toys from the site of a toy factory that burned to the ground in 1904.
Today the archeological site is Lock 3 Park, but in 1884 is was The American Marble & Toy Manufacturing Company, site of the world’s first mass-produced toys — clay marbles and penny toys. “Marbles were made using a device [that] allowed one worker to make 800 to 1,000 clay marbles per hour… So significant was the economy of scale, that one penny could buy a handful of marbles or dozens of different penny toys. The Blue Santa was a penny toy…” Before Dyke opened his company, there were only hand-made toys, beautifully painted, clever in design and so expensive only the world’s wealthiest families could afford a toy… “From that point forward, all children could have a toy,” says Cohill.
The figurine is wearing a blue cloak.
Link.
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A Taiwanese man with a character known as “Little Gray” completed all 986 objectives in World of Warcraft and finished the game:
To reach the milestone the Taiwanese power-player killed 390,895 creatures, accumulated 7,255,538,878 points of damage, completed 5,906 quests (that’s 14.62 quests per day, apparently), raided 405 dungeons and hugged 11 players.
Here’s the sad part: once you achieve something like this, what is there left to accomplish in life?
Link via Wandering Goblin | Image: Blizzard Entertainment
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Flickr user roguebantha_1138 spent two hours assembling this snowman that looks like a LEGO minifig.
Link via Geekologie
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deviantART user William Chua of Singapore created this remix of Super Mario Bros. and classical Japanese illustration. He claims inspiration by both Super Mario Bros. and the game Monster Hunter.
Link via Geekologie | deviantART Gallery
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Got
a neat story? Share it with the world by writing your very own Neatorama
blog post with the Upcoming
Queue. Who knows, you might just win something ... 
1980s:
A SPOKESSPUD IS BORN
Arnold
Schwarzenegger and the President's Council on Physical Fitness give him
an award for abandoning his couch-potato lifestyle. Curiously, his new
healthy habits don't stop Mr. Potato Head from endorsing Burger King,
McDonald's, Wendy's, and Hardee's.
