Fake Sprinkler Head For Your Keys

This is a great hide-a-key concept. Just put your keys in the fake sprinkler head, screw it shut and jam it down into the garden near your door. This looks like a great product, for those of you still using keys, like it’s the 1900’s.

Hide-a-keys must be one of the most frustrating things to invent. The more fame and fortune your product enjoys, the less useful it becomes.

This product is available through ThinkGeek Gadgets.
You can also get it through Amazon.

Poor Man’s Roomba

Are you tired of waiting for your babies to be old enough to be child labor? Too cheap to buy a Roomba? Or just plain lazy? This could be the product for you!

(via CrunchGear)

Slicer: A sled that comes with its own snow

The Slicer all weather sled sled comes with ice trays you can put in your freezer to make giant ice cubes to attach to the underside of the sled. Your kid will be the envy of the neighborhood this summer as he hurtles by on his sled, scarf flapping in the 115° wind. Or they will just think he is crazy. But he won’t care, because he is sledding in the middle of summer and has the coolest butt in town. And they have it at amazon! That place has everything!

(via CrunchGear)

Solar Powered Batteries

Some enterprising individual has made solar powered batteries. Just leave them lying around for a while when they run out of juice and they will charge back up. A brilliant concept, but still in the early stages of design. Wow, C cells? I thought they stopped making those in the 80’s.

(More info at HackADay)

Electromagnetic Levitation

SimerLab Physicist Janick Simeray (Ph.D. degrees in electronics and mechanical engineering ) has created the worlds most awesome coaster. The coaster will levitate objects up to two pounds!

 

It doesn’t just push an object up, it holds an object in place like a tractor beam.

This has huge potential for product placement. Notice too how the laces are lifted by the device.

(Via GeeksAreSexy)

Similar posts:

Levotate Objects with Static Electricity (FunFlyStick)

Design Masterpiece

I keep a few folding chairs stashed away somewhere for those rare occasions when I have too many guests. Sooner or later they end up in the way or covered in spiders. Korean designer Kwang Hoo Lee has come up with an alternative to these problems with his Mona Lisa folding chair. 

I can see a few design modifications I’d make. I think at risk of losing some novelty, I’d put the painting and gilding down to prevent wear, and I’d have the back of the chair be the side it swings away from in order to put in cross bars for back support. I do think this concept has potential. I think they would sell fast at Target.

Would anyone care to redesign my Christmas tree stand and vacuum cleaner as works of art? They are in the way too. (via treehugger)

Smart Tweezers

Whenever I go into a store like Radio Shack (great marketing on the name guys), I’m always a little shocked at how low tech it has remained. Behind the cell phones and overpriced video connectors that obviously are all that keeps them in business, there is a small section of simple electronic components and tools that look like they were some kind of Chinese surplus from the 80’s. Somewhere in the mix there will be a boxy over sized multimeter with a few functions on it and some giant tangly contacts. This is not an acceptable way to deal with modern electronics.

Enter the Smart Tweezer. The tips measure  capacitance, resistance,  inductance, and voltage. It will even graph out time varying voltage on the built in screen and identify components.

Unfortunately they aren’t cheap. They run about $300, when they are in stock.

Robots Playing Soccer (Football?)

If Rubik’s Cubes decided to take up sports, this is what you would get. The rules of the game specify a maximum size for the bots and set some ground rules for fair play. If they could simplify the programming interface, add some players, and sell these as a set I think they would make for a great upgrade for the old Foosball table.

(Via BotJunkie, who also has some skittery line runner bots)

Hopside Down Glass

Why would I put something as awesome as this glass which appears to contain an upside down beer bottle into the imperfection category? Because the glass is double walled. I had a glass like this once. It was an exiting novelty, until the day I dropped an ice cube into it and it shattered. The walls were paper thin. I was all set to buy this glass if it were a normal thick glass with a shaped interior. It isn’t on sale yet. I’ll check back in later and see if I can find out more.

Honorable Mentions for Jan 09

A few things that caught my eye but didn’t merit a post to themselves:

How to use butane and fire to mount a tire that has come off its rim

The Ibex has now set two huge scientific records. It was the first animal to be cloned after extinction, and subsequently the first animal to ever become extinct twice. Better luck next time guys, this has great promise.

USB drive that masquerades as a floppy drive for those annoying things like bios updates that still tend to require them.

Salad Sunrise: Oil and vinegar container that takes advantage of their relative weights to serve them from a single container.

Flashlight hose nozzle. Why you would garden in the dark is beyond me. Most people have lights in their yard. This thing needs to be water powered at least.

Barbie digital fingernail printer. Pick your pattern, stick your finger in the printer. Instant manicure.

Washing machine built to take the whole basket. It looks great, but the more I think about it the less impressed I am.

Toaster Trebuchet catapults your toast with great accuracy.

Please consider this to be an open post as well. Feel free to post a link to your blog, throw up a link to something you think should be featured on this site, or talk about what is on your mind. All comments will be moderated, so don’t be spammy.

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