Apparently pilot Alan Szabo is something of a name in the R/C helicopter world. All I know is that he makes this overpowered chopper do things that no full-sized chopper could ever think about doing, with manic flips and near-ground reversals.
I couldn’t help but watch this video and wonder when military drones will be [...]

And lo, it is sort of terrible. Which is to say, as a film it ranks somewhere between Star Wars: Episode I and a moldy bread pudding. There is an entire subplot with a group of hackers and John Turturro that could be excised from its two-hour-plus running time and no one would be the [...]

This week we found a killer inexpensive offset bracket that turns your standard recip saw into a flush-cutting monster – perfect for quick mods to stairs and shelves. We also looked at an inexpensive block plane – you can never have too many planes! – a pair of updated linesman’s pliers, and a $12 [...]

Despite my previous exhortation not to purchase a generation-one iPhone due to Apple’s lack of third-party applications (among other failings), I woke last Saturday from literal dreams about the device and purchased one myself. I caved. I thought it important to point out my own hypocrisy.
After a couple of days using the iPhone and a [...]

Ping Magazine has a nice interview with Alex Kubalsky, an Australian who moved to Japan in an attempt to get a job designing toys (and almost didn’t pull it off). Despite the intricate transformations, Kubalsky doesn’t use computers for his designs, but instead documents the whole multi-step changes out on graph paper.
His smirking Bumblebee design [...]

Perhaps the greatest G.I. Joe design ever, the Snowcat came with its own rack of missiles and torpedo skis. I used to have fever dreams about this vehicle, even after I got one. I loved it most, next to the submarine that could also fly.

I have so far been able to resist any of the themed Lego sets since the Star Wars ones, which I tend to use in making my own spaceship designs. I just couldn’t see what I’d be doing with a Batman or Spider-Man set. But I can tell you already that I’ll be getting at [...]

The one time I was in Japan I almost came home with a guitar shaped like a machine gun. I still regret not purchasing that. This custom “Sword Angel” guitar on sale at eBay would ease the pain slightly, but when I search my pockets for a spare nine grand all I find is lint [...]

Jim Ryan built this 1/24th scale remote-controlled Chinook helicopter. It doesn’t do much more than take off, wobble in the air, then land, but for a hand-built model I think that’s more than okay. Just getting a tandem-rotor R/C chopper to get up in the air at all is impressive.
Bonus link: a fan-made video of [...]

There are two general schools of thought when it comes to Lego models: using as many parts as it takes to achieve the design you want, often ending up in a giant-sized model (example); using as few as parts as possible to get the basic idea across, still preserving the basic shape (example). Neither is [...]

It takes greater and greater things to trip my lust breaker these days, but these amazing crafts from Take-G Toys have done. I want to possess them utterly. Fortunately for me, these pieces are only one-offs and aren’t for sale, considering I probably couldn’t afford to buy gorgeous, hand-made wooden robots.
Someone break into Japan and [...]

Hobbytron’s new Hornet 3 was crafted as a direct response to the success of the Silverlit Picoo/Picco Z. Both mini remote-controlled helicopters have a foam body and are controlled via a two-channel infrared remote. They both are available for around $40.
My suspicion is that Hobbytron developed the Hornet 3 on their own so that they [...]