Designed as a technology demonstration, a puck-whacking robot may soon challenge you on your home turf
By Brett ZardaPosted 07.03.2008 at 2:37 pm1 Comment
Stroll by a strip mall arcade or the local Dave & Buster's, look behind the noisy kids playing Dance Dance Revolution, and you'll likely spot an air hockey table. Like Pac-Man and the maddening claw game, air hockey remains unchanged and everlasting. Two facts seem to endear us to the floating puck: 1) everyone thinks they're good at the game but 2) nobody knows for sure. Nowhere in the sports landscape are so many goals scored upon oneself. A 6-0 victory in one game is reversed in the next battle, thanks entirely to Lady Luck. But when you compete against the Air Hockey Bot 1000 (AHB-1000), a career once dictated by fickle fortune can finally be tested against formulaic consistency.
Weightlifters trapped in small spaces may soon get more room to swing their guns
By Brett ZardaPosted 07.01.2008 at 5:24 pm8 Comments
A 450 square foot shoebox apartment was once a valid exemption from owning fitness equipment (and merely one component of your preemptive exercise avoidance plan). But you soon may have one less excuse for that gut. The Otto-Bench, a concept created by Gabriel Prero, presents the first chink in your oversized armor. The aesthetically pleasing ottoman or coffee table, transforms seamlessly into a weight bench and houses all the required hardware needed to get buff.