Tag Archives: Modding

Star Wars Landspeeder Ride-On Children’s Toy Modded with Jet Engine

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Because almost every mode of transportation is improved with more horsepower, inventor and YouTuber Joel Creates replaced the pathetically underpowered 12-volt motors of a children’s Star Wars Landspeeder toy with a small jet engine. And, I think I speak for every speed-lover here when I say, where was this when I was a kid? Also, where the heck was the Bigfoot Power Wheels that was on the top of my birthday list every year?

The modding included locking the back wheels in place to prevent the landspeeder from only doing donuts and adding an R/C controller so the person riding in it (or somebody else you trust with your safety) can steer. Now that looks like fun. I wish my friends did fun stuff like this on weekends. Or maybe they do, and they just don’t invite me.

I was just thinking of adding a jet engine to my nephew’s Radio Flyer wagon; now, I can show this to my sister as a proof of concept. Will she actually let me add the engine? Of course not, but that won’t stop me from telling my nephew I was going to, but his mom wouldn’t let me. I really hope he takes that into consideration while casting his ballot for World’s Greatest Uncle.

[via TechEBlog]

Man Turns Old IKEA Desk Into A Star Wars Workbench

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Presumably using a healthy dose of The Force, filmmaker Glen Vivaris of the YouTube channel Glen Makes crafted this Star Wars-inspired workbench from an old IKEA desk. Most impressive! For reference, I turned my old IKEA desk into kindling, which I then used to light the sofa at my last bonfire party. Now I know what you’re thinking, and I couldn’t agree more; you should have been there.

In addition to the Star Wars-style greebles on its drawer, the desk features a pop-up power strip, and the wall behind the desk has a suction vent for sucking away harmful soldering fumes. It’s a thermal exhaust port! Glen better hope the Rebel Alliance doesn’t fire any proton torpedoes down that thing.

An impressive workbench, to be sure. Currently, my own workbench is a closet door laid across two uneven towers of cardboard boxes. I keep telling myself it’s only temporary, but I’ve been telling myself that since I moved in three years ago, so at this point, I’m really just lying to myself.

[via Laughing Squid]

Modder Packs Tiny OLED Display Into LEGO Computer Brick

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LEGO builders: their level of ingenuity never ceases to amaze me. Case in point, this mod created by programmer (not singer) James Brown, who managed to pack a tiny OLED display into a translucent brick to mimic a LEGO computer terminal. How about that! Eight-year-old me is going crazy over this, and current me is going even crazier!

The 3D printed brick has a tiny 0.5″ OLED display inside, controlled by an ARM-based microcontroller James made especially for the build. You just plug the brick into a LEGO baseplate powered by a 9V battery, and voila, the computer comes to life with lines of make-believe code that mimic the original screen. Amazing!

Seeing as how I have zero skills or knowledge related to mods of this nature, James, please tell me you plan on opening an online store and selling these. I would buy a bunch! Well, maybe not buy, but how many will you trade me for a wedding band?

[via TechEBlog]

Man Constructs Functional Cardboard GameBoy Advance SP

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Because dream it, and you can achieve it (even if that dream takes way too much time that could probably be better spent doing something else entirely), YouTuber Peter Knetter deconstructed a GameBoy Advance SP to remove the hardware, then built a custom case INCLUDING CONTROLS entirely out of cardboard, then put the hardware inside to create a functional cardboard GameBoy Advance SP. Personally, I would have called it the GameBoy Unadvanced SP, but that’s just me and I’m incredible at naming things.

Peter actually seems pretty surprised when it works, as was I. He’s even able to play some Tony Hawk Underground on it to put it through its paces. Sure you probably aren’t going to be able to play your very best on the system, but that’s a small price to pay for a GameBoy that gets soggy in the rain.

The next logical project will be constructing a duct tape GameBoy Unadvanced SP. Honestly, it’s only a matter of time, and not very much time if Peter is as proficient with duct tape as I imagine he is. I’m already looking forward to the video!

[via TechEBlog]

Sci-Fi Inspired Computer Terminal With Round Monitor Is Space Ready

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The Mainboard Terminal is the brainchild of computer modder Penk Chen, who drew inspiration from old sci-movies, which imagined a future a lot cooler than it actually is. The all-in-one computer uses a Framework Mainboard (which, unlike a Rasberry Pi, is capable of running x86 operating systems) running a version of Ubuntu 22.04 LT that’s been slightly modified to account for the round display. Commander, an enemy ship just appeared on our radar! God, I love playing space rangers.

The Mainboard, which replaces a traditional motherboard and most other hardware (it’s basically an Intel-powered, single-board computer), sits inside a custom 3D-printed case, which also houses a OLKB Preonic mechanical keyboard, perfect for complementing the computer’s retrofuturistic style. I love retrofuturistic style. Maybe that’s why I spend so much time playing Fallout. Plus, you know, it’s a great escape from real life.

Now Penk just needs to make it run off an onboard battery instead of AC power so it’s portable, and I’ve got myself a new mobile workstation! Are people going to stare at me on the subway? Of course, but is it the computer they’re staring at or my space suit? Who knows!

[via TechEBlog]

Guy Mods ’90s Hot Wheels PC Into High Performance Gaming System

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The 1990s Hot Wheels PC: it made the top of my Christmas list three years in a row, and I never got one. But enough about how expensive therapy is now, below is a video of Shank Mod’s journey to pack a top-of-the-line gaming PC into the body of one of those bright blue PCs with the flame job. And what a journey it is! You know they say every journey starts with a single step, but I’ve started many with a stumble and skinned knees.

The original Hot Wheels PC came with an Intel Celeron 333MHz processor, 3GB hard drive, 32MB of memory, a 56k modem, 32X CD ROM drive, a 15″ CRT monitor and ran Windows 98. It retailed for $899 and was worth every penny as far as I was concerned. Of course, it’s basically an electric-powered rock by today’s standards.

All said and done; Shank managed to stuff the old case with an AMD Ryzen 9 5950X processor, Gigabyte X570 Aorus Mini-ITX motherboard, ASUS X570-I ROG Strix Mini-ITX motherboard, an EVGA NVIDIA GeForce RTX 3060 XC graphics card, G.Skill Trident Z Neo Series RGB 128GB (4 x 32GB) RAM, a Samsung 980 Pro 2TB SSD, and an LG WH16NS40 16x Internal Blu-Ray Rewriter.

Interestingly, he uses three original Hot Wheels CRT monitors for the display, citing the frame rate benefits of CRTs and the ability to crank all game settings up to max without hindrance. It’s so beautiful I could cry. I could also cry remembering 10-year old me opening a box I thought was a Hot Wheels PC but turned out to be a popcorn maker. Now I can’t even smell popcorn without getting nauseous.

[via Gizmodo]

Modder Builds a Furby Synthesizer Module and It’s as Disturbing as You Might Imagine

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Look Mum No Computer (aka Sam Battle) clearly has some sort of strange obsession with making musical Furbys. You may recall his previously posted electronic organ created using 44 singing Furbys. I think we can all agree that is entirely too many Furbys in the same place at the same time. Well, now the mad musical scientist is back, this time adding a Furby module to a synthesizer board that can be played using the synth’s voltage input. What does it sound like? A nightmare isn’t far from accurate.

Subject 44B, as Sam likes to refer to the Furby Module, is controlled by a variety of switches located on the synth board to its immediate right, including a glitch switch, loop switch, one that makes the Furby respond to a belly rub, one that responds to feeding, and one that makes it think it’s been turned upside-down, all of which have control voltage inputs, leading to an absolute cacophony of sound.

What’s next on Sam’s list of Furby-related projects? Only time will tell, but if it involves artificial intelligence, you can rest assured it will herald the Furby apocalypse and the beginning of the end of humanity as we know it. Obviously, if that does happen, I will have a small amount of regret for ever contributing to Sam’s Patreon.

Modder Packs Playable Doom Game Into Pregnancy Test

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For those of you unaware, there’s an ongoing challenge in the computing and gaming community to get Doom to run on less and less sophisticated hardware, pushing the limits of what was ever thought possible. In the near future, someone will hack an abacus to run the game. But until then, we have this ‘playable’ version of Doom that modder foone managed to pack into a pregnancy test stick. It’s positive!


The game isn’t running on the pregnancy test’s actual hardware (foone says its hardware wasn’t reprogrammable) or original LCD screen (which could only display four pregnancy-related symbols), but rather a new microcontroller and a 128-by-32-pixel monochrome display. Of course, saying you can actually play Doom on the device is being pretty lenient with the wordplay because the entire video, I thought I was watching the moon landing.

Obviously, if you pack Doom into a stick pregnancy test and don’t take the opportunity to convince your wife or girlfriend that you’re pregnant and expecting a horde of demons, congratulations, you’ve clearly missed the point of this whole mod.

[via PCMag]

Voltron Castle of Lions PC Case Mod: Activate Interlock!

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There are good ideas, and then there are great ideas. And modder Robdp82 building a gaming PC (mostly emulation with some light e-gaming) into a 1984 Voltron Castle of Lions playset transcends even a great idea, and we can only hope when aliens finally visit earth this is the first thing they see so they don’t just immediately death-ray us all.

Photos by Robd82

The computer is powered on by opening the jaws of the Black Lion emerging from the front of the castle to access the power button. The entire PC is built into the middle of the castle, with a wing that opens on each side. The wing on the left opens to expose the Blue, Green, Yellow, and Red Lion M.2 SSD cards and Yeston RX550 GPU, and the right side opens to reveal the Gigabyte H370N motherboard (with onboard Black Lion M.2 SDD) and two Corsair Dominator 8GB RAM sticks. The Dominator RAM was chosen specifically “for the ability to individually address the lights for the colors of Voltron (RGBY) and went with pink for the 5th color to represent Princess Allura.” Now that’s dedication to a build!

What a glorious computer. And to think I still use the same Dell Dimension desktop I got in college back in 2006. Granted I only use it as a footrest, but still. The wired mouse also makes a great doorstop. Reduce, reuse, recycle – that’s my motto. Captain Planet even sent me an ‘Honorary Planeteer’ sticker last Earth Day.

[Robd82’s Voltron PC Project via Kotaku]