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Mario Kart Torsion Pendulum Clock
3 o’clock? More like Luigi o’clock, amiright? Because the hands on the clock look like an ‘L’…okay that joke was funnier in my head.
Anyways, anytime I see one of those fancy torsion pendulum clocks, specifically the orb weights revolving, I am reminded of the Koopa shells spinning around a racer in Mario Kart.
With the shell weights being suspended by a clear plastic (or glass) pillars, it would almost look like they are being self-propelled (I used a clear blue material so you can see them here).
I went with a tire and rim for the main clock, but other Mario Kart imagery could be used instead. One note: the shells wouldn’t spin around in one direction continuously, they’d reverse direction every 15 - 20 seconds - I couldn’t express that in the GIF.
Here’s hoping such a clock could be made. It would be the sort of family heirloom geeks would covet.
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Ideas To Help The Wii U
Last night Nintendo announced that sales for the Wii U are going to be well below expectations for fiscal year 2013, and despite the one year head-start it appears that it will fall behind newcomers PS4 and Xbox One sometime in 2014 (in terms of units sold).
So why is the Wii U faltering? Is it the console’s price or lack of games? Is there brand confusion with the previous Wii console? Are the Wii U’s specs not powerful enough for the long haul? Depending on who you ask it could be one thing or all of the above. Regardless, the Wii U is selling about as well as the doomed Sega Dreamcast, which doesn’t bode well for its future.
Here are some suggestions to help Nintendo’s flagship console: Read the rest of this entry
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Wii U External HDD Cases Part 2: Metroid
Enlisting the Save Station platform from the Metroid Prime series seems like a fun way to designate an external drive if I may say so. Metroid has one of the more ‘showy’ saves in all video games, ideal for a device that stores games and save files.
When a save or data transfer occurs, the LED lights on the platform would pulse (sorry no GIF this time). Samus could also have an LED in her visor, but that might be tricky to do with her being so small.
I feel the Samus figure could be sold separately. Some people might prefer different eras of the character or different colors even.
Other variants: the drive case could also the Gunship which Samus could stand on. Samus could also stand in a glass capsule a la Super Metroid. The HDD could be jettisoned altogether, so you could have a Metroid figure on a stand that intercepts a USB feed to the external drive.
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Wii U External HDD Cases Part 1: Super Mario
I haven’t been following the Wii U too much these past several months, I figured I knew all there was to know about Nintendo’s new console. But then recently I learned the system is allowing for external storage (either SD Cards or external hard drives) to help with capacity. How great is that? No proprietary hardware and easy-to-maintain data. Kudos to Nintendo.
What got me excited about this storage system are the possible external hard drive enclosures we could be seeing, be it from Nintendo or a third party (like Mad Catz). I think we could be seeing some pretty cool cases to park our hard drives in, because they’d enlist video game themes as opposed to looking like drab bricks.
First up is this really simple Mario block design. I have a few more designs in the pipeline, but I wanted to start with this one because it would compliment the Wii U console in appearance.
It features a Mario question block that operates as the power button (illuminates when powered-on). Above it are coins that animate in a light sequence to denote data is being transferred or a write is taking place (like saving a game). It would play the coin chime sound when the device is turned on, in sync with a single coin animation.
I’m 99.99% sure we’ll see a few fun HDD cases like this, because they’d appeal to both Wii owners and those who would want a geeky external case for their desktop computer. And that kind of market reach would be difficult to ignore from electronics companies.
