Wall-E Animator Tops Everyone Who Ever Wanted to Make a LEGO Wall-E [Lego]

Were you thinking of building your own Wall-E out of LEGO? Pfft. I mean, no, go ahead. Just don't ever put it next to this model by Angus MacLane, who actually helped animate the film. Because, as good as yours may look, he can always play the "well, the way we do things at Pixar..." card on you. So how does he rate his own performance?

I’m proud of the overall proportions, but the eyes are still a bit too off for me...Having stared at this robot for 3+ years, I was extremely familiar with the proportions and functionality of Wall•E. It helped to know his design, but that made it hard to make the usual compromises when converting items to LEGO form.

But from our untrained eyes, it appears that MacLane is being far too hard on himself.
[Via: Gizmodo, The Gadget Blog ]

Guitar Hero 'Slashbot' riffs uncontrollably, plots mankind's downfall

It's clear that everyone is looking for a way to game the system these days. The video game system, that is. In the vein of that Guitar Hero cheat-mod we saw the other day, four undergraduate students at Texas A&M University have built a Guitar Hero playing robot that can shred with the best of them... no hands required. The system -- dubbed Slashbot -- works as a completely standalone process, using a converter box to translate specific pixel information from the screen intro note presses and strums on the mechanical contraption. On average, the bot is achieving 90 percent accuracy in expert mode, and has yet to be defeated by a human challenger. Next up? It plans to eradicate all human life on Earth, of course! Check the video of Slashbot playing -- what else? -- Cliffs of Dover after the break.

[Via: Engadget ]