Lego fan Brandon Griffith created this aswesome chess set make out of Lego elements. This Lego Star Wars chess set has broken the chess paradigm of one figure per piece the kings include Luke and Leia together and the queen Han and Chewie.
Brandon decided to build three different Chess sets in total, one for each original episode. This is the first of the series. Star Wars: A New Hope Lego Chess which weights in at a whopping 25lbs.
The Tactility is a specially designed mobile phone concept that will diminish the limitation of blind peoples being uncomfortable with traditional mobile phones. The usual mobile phones mainly focus on its aesthetics and functions, without thinking of the usability for a person who will not be able to see it. Moreover, different model handset contains different keyboard arrangements, as well as different operating menus that make it harder to operate a cell phone for blind people. The keyboard of Tactility is designed with Braille and features most commonly used function which will greatly reduce the hassle of blind people using it. The bottom of the phone comprises a circular ring where a chain can be attached to hang the phone around the neck of a blind person which will boost their convenience of using the phone.
Designer : Siwei Liu
The portable vacuum cleaner is an innovative concept of a wireless, compact and easy to carry vacuum cleaner that features an ergonomic handle and a built-in charger. The main inspiration of creating this product was to create an emotional link among people in a stylish and pioneering manner. This lightweight gadget is an ideal small cleaning solution for both in the car and at home. Users of particular color enthusiasm can opt for a Portable Vacuum Cleaner from four different colors available as per their desire, combining in various environments. This gadget will definitely reflect your taste with its excellent, unique and functional design, while providing great handiness for cleaning.
Designer : Max Germano
Architect Marlon Blackwell does something with his designs that many architects seem unable or unwilling to do: he takes the building’s environment into consideration when designing a structure. His Southern designs all resonate with their environments rather than fighting with them for attention. His buildings may be modern, but Blackwell ensures that they are always in harmony with their surroundings. The architect’s designs have won several awards and been featured in numerous books.
Keenan TowerHouse
This stunning 80-foot tall tower home/office almost looks like a fire tower converted into a house. But it is a new structure built for a family who wanted to enjoy the stunning views of the Ozarks provided by their 57-acre building site. The structure seems to be at once both natural and industrial, with the wood and the white metal panels each providing complementary yet opposite facets to the design. A steep interior staircase takes one up to the main part of the building, where one room provides a 360-degree view of the landscape. The very top of the tower features an open-roof outdoor room for enjoying even the overhead view.
Arkansas House
Marlon Blackwell’s firm was called to repair the fire damage to this existing home. They were only allowed to work in the areas that had been damaged. By adding light monitors and suspended lofts, they were able to bring a greater degree of light into the space, making it feel airy and bright. Blackwell won an award for this design in the restoration category, but the judges were somewhat apprehensive to award it: they said the restoration was so successful they couldn’t tell where the old sections of the home ended and the new section began.
L-Stack House
Blackwell’s own home is equally impressive as his other ventures. The L-Stack House design centers on a glass-surrounded staircase that brings together the public and private sections of the stacked layers. Blackwell, who is also a tenured associate professor at the University of Arkansas, wanted the home to react well to its surroundings: a dense urban neighborhood with a generous dose of nature nearby.
Porchdog House Prototype
The Porchdog House was designed as a part of the Architecture for Humanity Model Home Program in Biloxi, Mississippi. The program is providing affordable prototype houses to families who were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. The Porchdog house is raised 12 feet off of the ground, creating a home that is less prone to flooding. However, there is a traditional front-porch culture to maintain in Biloxi, which Blackwell preserved in this design with a ground-level porch and parking area. The resulting home is not only stable in the face of a Category 4 hurricane; it is also an efficient urban design that could conceivably be adopted anywhere in the country.
East London borough meets Deathcore band from USA. I need one of these tees to fully represent!
Modern door stoppers and creative doorstop designs that will hold your door open or closed in style.
Being locked up is no picnic, to be sure, and people in prison have to learn to do without the small comforts of life on the outside. But, thanks to books and movies about prison life, it’s pretty well-known that inmates have an endless capacity for invention. The empty peanut butter jar or used Popsicle stick that anyone else would throw away becomes a valuable tool in prison. Most of these items are considered contraband and would be confiscated if found, but that doesn’t stop inmates from recycling and repurposing the materials at hand to create some truly astonishing items.
Machines and Electronics
(image via: Marc Steinmetz)
Some low-security prisons allow the use of hot plates in cells, but in those that don’t, prisoners still find ways to cook their own food. This cell stove/grill was made by a prisoner in Germany using a broken heater, aluminum foil, and some wire.
(image via: Temporary Services)
Whether it was meant to be used for making art, tools or weapons is a mystery, but this mini-lathe is a great example of how prisoners use the items around them to make ingenious machines. A few discarded pieces of plastic, some batteries, wires, tape and rubber bands, and you’re in business.
(image via: Marc Steinmetz)
Since alcohol isn’t allowed in prison, prisoners have been making jailhouse booze forever. An essential part of any inmate’s still is an immersion heater like this one. Razor blades and an electric cord make up the (presumably extremely dangerous) heater pictured.
(images via: Marc Steinmetz)
Inmates – especially those with contraband to hide – are constantly on the lookout for cell shakedowns. They can more easily prepare for the searches if they have a device like this bug. Provided that they can somehow sneak it into the guard room, this tiny transmitter will allow a prisoner to listen to whatever is going down in the guards’ domain. Made from radio recorder parts, the little device can also be used to transmit from one cell to another, provided the second cell has a receiver like the one pictured above, hidden in an encyclopedia.
(image via: Temporary Services)
Prison tattoos are made in a variety of ways: some inmates use razor blades to etch the skin before rubbing ink in, some use a paper clip or staple to embed the ink, and some find a way to make an improvised tattoo gun. All it takes is a power source (like batteries), a small motor (we hear the N64 rumble pack is popular), a sewing needle or piece of sharpened wire and a few miscellaneous pieces to hold it all together.
Home Comforts
(image via: Temporary Services)
When you’re cooking dinner on your cleverly engineered hot plate, chances are you’ll want to season your food. But since you aren’t allowed to take the cafeteria salt and pepper shakers back to your cell, these makeshift salt and pepper shakers are just as good.
(images via: Temporary Services)
Boredom sets in easily in prison, so prisoners are always coming up with ingenious ways to keep themselves busy. These dice and this beautiful chess set were made of paper mache, which in prison consists of toilet paper, water and glue.
(image via: Temporary Services)
This little table, made from ramen noodle packages and masking tape, is perfect for playing dice on or enjoying a snack in your bunk. This is a perfect example of how prisoners recycle everything possible to make things that they want or need. Their never-ending inventiveness adds a touch of comfort, order and beauty to an otherwise barren and unpleasant environment.
(image via: Temporary Services)
Candles aren’t allowed in prison for the obvious reasons that they can easily start a fire or be used as weapons. That doesn’t mean that they can’t be found, though. Prisoners use empty yogurt or applesauce containers, baby oil, and thread to make crude candles for seeing after lights-out, sterilizing needles, and whatever other activities might require an open flame.
(image via: Temporary Services)
Many inmates use art as a way to cope with incarcerated life. These pencil boxes, cleverly made from discarded toothpaste boxes, can store the artistic prisoner’s colored pencils.
(image via: Temporary Services)
When an inmate needs to light a homemade candle or hard-earned cigarette, obviously he can’t just pull a lighter out of his pocket. There are many ways to get access to fire (or at least a spark) in prison, but this one is simple while boasting a pretty intelligent design. A wire is taped to the negative side of the battery; when you want a light, just touch the other side of the wire to the positive side of the battery and the exposed bit of wire in the middle heats up.
(image via: Marc Steinmetz)
If you manage to get hold of some weed in prison, finding a way to smoke it is the easy part. Prisoners have made pipes out of tons of different materials, but this one, made from an empty horseradish tube, is truly inventive. When rolled up, it looks completely innocent.
(image via: Temporary Services)
Being locked up for long periods of time makes you miss a lot of things, not the least of which is sex. When you haven’t seen an actual woman in months or years, a rolled-up blanket with a plastic bag inside and a generous squirt of baby oil starts to look pretty good. This is one area in which both male and female prisoners seem to have an endless supply of creativity; prison sex toys have been made out of just about everything at one time or another.
Weapons
(images via: Design Observer)
Prison is a notoriously dangerous place. Weapons are, of course, not allowed, but that poses no problem for inmates determined to do some damage. The shiv on the left was made from a sharpened carriage return from a typewriter. The one on the right is a piece of Plexiglass with a tape-wrapped handle. When using a Plexiglass shiv, inmates will often score the Plexiglass so that it breaks off in the victim, leaving the fingerprint-containing handle in the attacker’s possession so he can dispose of it.
(image via: Marc Steinmetz)
This terrifying-looking blade, concealed in a crucifix, was confiscated from an inmate in a German prison. It was made by the inmate in the prison workshop. This is a sophisticated example of a jailhouse shiv; most are made from primitive materials like chicken bones, sharpened toothbrush handles, and melted and hardened trash bags or Styrofoam cups. Some prisoners even coat their weapons in feces to increase the chance that the victim will develop a painful and dangerous infection.
(image via: Wikimedia)
Candy bars as a weapon? Yes – in prison, anything goes. Candy bars are melted down on hot plates and the molten mess thrown into the face of the victim. The chocolate and caramel are extremely hot and harden very quickly, making them painful when they hit and difficult to get off of the skin. This DIY weapon may be primitive, but it’s effective.
(image via: Marc Steinmetz)
Prisoners tend to be pretty patient, given that most of them have plenty of time, so when they want to make something they are able to collect the pieces they need over time. The horrifying whip on the left is made from a shoelace and several razor blades. The “knuckleduster” on the right was made with a rasp probably stolen from the prison’s workshop.
Art
(image via: Interesting Ideas)
As mentioned above, prisoners often use art to occupy their time while incarcerated. The materials they use can be as simple as pens and paper, or they can get more elaborate. A common material is wrappers from chips, candy and gum. They fold the wrappers into thin strips and then weave them together to create sculptures and other items.
(image via: Interesting Ideas)
Believe it or not, these vibrantly-colored motorcycles are all made of garbage and scavenged items by Chip Jarrett, an inmate in Michigan. Jarrett’s motorcycles have been shown at several prison-themed art shows and sold to collectors.
(images via: Interesting Ideas)
These fascinating pieces of art were created by Michael Harms, an Illinois inmate. The chairs are carved from Ivory soap (the standard-issue soap doesn’t work for his purposes) and sewing needles. They are incredibly detailed and intricate, especially for their size: none are more than a few inches high. Equally impressive is the fact that he makes the cases for the chairs, as well, using Popsicle sticks that he cuts with a nail trimmer. The stains for the wood are made with rust from steel wool and small amounts of color from colored pencils. The finished chairs can sell for several hundred dollars each.
