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Pictures from Maker Faire Tokyo
We look at what Tokyo's tinkerers have been brewing in their basements.
By
Jeff Blagdon
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- This project is an attempt to make the most comfortable video game chair imaginable. Aside from shrouding the player in darkness with a heavy-duty speaker system, it feeds a straw of orange juice straight to his or her mouth while keeping bananas and Calorie Mate health bars firmly in reach.
- This guitar-style instrument is fashioned from a mannequin's leg and a touchscreen that triggers erotic noises from an attached TV.
- Yoshihiro Hyodo used to work in manufacturing before deciding to build walking mechanical robots out of paper. Power from rubber bands is supplied to the robots through a wooden driveshaft and toothed paper gears.
- This quadrotor was built by Tokushima University engineering student Shinji Uemura and associate professor Masashi Miwa. It uses encased jet-style engines instead of exposed propellers, making it safer to operate, the pair said.
- Asagami Works's robot soccer team only has three players so far. The team's members save money from their part-time jobs to buy parts for the expensive machines.
- This audio spectrum analyzer from Charonix Design Works uses 112 Russian IN-13 Nixie tubes. "The supply is really limited," said its builder.
- If you don't have anything to read in the bath, why not try making music? This laser theremin projects keys, knobs, and sliders onto the porcelain. It's called Bathcratch, and was developed at Kyoto Sangyo University.
- This contraption combines a Raspberry Pi and an arcade button to let you turn off the air conditioning from your smartphone.
- These spinning tops generate light and sound when cast across a touch-sensitive surface.
- One clever inventor’s project solves the problem of how to pour a ridiculous amount of soy sauce on your food. “I just got this idea, and like an idiot I wondered if I could make it into a machine.”