kimu-ryo's “True Random Number Generator Using a Disc Tray v1” uses the opening and closing motion of a DVD drive tray to physically roll a die. Because the result comes from an actual physical event, it serves as a source of randomness rather than a software pseudo-random sequence.
The ProtoPedia page highlights the simplicity of controlling the tray, and a v2 is being developed to return the die automatically after each roll. A computer component has effectively been reassigned to the ancient computational technique of throwing dice.
Instead of making the random-number algorithm smarter, the solution is to make a DVD drive physically roll dice. That's a dramatic return to hardware.
Adafruit's John Park built One Key, a wireless mechanical keyboard containing exactly one key. It connects as a Bluetooth HID device and can act as a mute button, presentation clicker, macro launcher or other configurable control.
Despite having only one physical key, it can send characters, combinations such as Ctrl-Z, strings and media commands. A WebSerial interface also configures LED colors and sleep behavior. The input hardware has been reduced to almost nothing, while the configuration for deciding what that one button means has become impressively rich.
The keyboard has been reduced to one key, but the settings for deciding what that one key does keep multiplying.
Throaty Mumbo published a patch for the original Super Mario Bros. that lets two Famicoms communicate through Nintendo's old Famicom Network System.
The setup calls for two consoles, two network units, compatible flash cartridges and phone cabling. The live demo uses a telephone-line simulator, while the README notes that a real landline might work as well. It is a 2026 multiplayer experiment whose networking stack has traveled conspicuously backward in time.
To connect with a friend in 2026, the required hardware is basically “two Famicoms and a phone line.” The route to the future is going backward.
Raul Muñoz wanted smart-treadmill data from a rented machine that he could not open, modify, or attach sensors to. His solution leaves the treadmill untouched: a USB camera watches it from the side while an AI model on an Arduino VENTUNO Q estimates walking speed from video and broadcasts the result over Bluetooth FTMS to compatible fitness apps.
To train the system, Muñoz recorded treadmill sessions while labeling the displayed speeds, building a dataset across ten sessions. A restriction that ruled out a simple physical sensor therefore led to an entire local computer-vision pipeline sitting beside the machine.
When you are not allowed to attach one small sensor, apparently the compliant alternative is to have an AI stare at the treadmill continuously. The rule is obeyed with impressive force.
Steven Gong and fellow University of Waterloo engineering students built a robot that can retrieve a shirt, straighten it, fold it, and place it on a stack. Two human-operated leader arms control two follower arms while cameras record the process; the team collected about 200 demonstrations for training.
Early models either failed to begin the task or moved violently enough to break a 3D-printed gripper. The team eventually fine-tuned a robotics foundation model, then had to collect more data after moving the setup to a new building changed the lighting. By the next morning, the system could complete the folding sequence autonomously.
A chore that takes a person less than a minute required four robot arms, hundreds of demonstrations, a broken gripper, and an overnight model search. Laundry has excellent scaling properties.
Throaty Mumbo built NESCD-001, an unofficial optical-disc add-on for the original Nintendo Entertainment System. A custom RP2350B board bridges a standard IDE CD drive and an EverDrive N8 Pro, reading a game ROM from the disc and transferring it to the flash cartridge so the NES can launch it.
The creator describes the project as something made "just because," and it can even play ordinary audio CDs through the console. The idea began with the history of the canceled SNES CD add-on, then deliberately moved one generation backward to a machine for which an optical drive makes even less historical sense.
This is not restoring a lost NES accessory; it is manufacturing an alternate history in which the NES somehow demanded a CD drive. Engineering has been used to create nostalgia for something that never existed.
XPENG commissioned a production line for its IRON humanoid robot in September 2026. Once the first unit was assembled, it was not carried away on a cart: the finished robot autonomously walked off the production line under its own power.
XPENG says more than 80% of the line's core processes are automated. IRON has 76 body degrees of freedom and 21 in each hand, and the company plans to begin mass production by the end of 2026 with deliveries starting in 2027.
Most products leave a factory as cargo. This one reaches the end of the line and simply walks out like its shift has started.
For Maker Faire Tokyo 2026, maker Okome built a coin bank centered on a fictional virtual streamer named Kogane Maneki. A photo-interrupter detects inserted coins and the display reacts as though the character has received live-stream donations; accumulated money also drives subscriber growth and life events inside the simulated stream.
Repeated coin insertions can trigger a "Super Chat Fever" mode that boosts the on-screen subscriber count. What began as a beginner electronics exercise grew into a Raspberry Pi-powered display, 3D-printed enclosure, fictional character, stream interface, and a very physical way to donate real cash to someone who does not exist.
Online tipping has been converted back into putting coins in a box. The VTuber is fictional, but at least the money remains extremely physical.
BB Korry’s “Anything Runway” is a small automated stage that sends hand-sized objects down a catwalk as if they were fashion models. Curtains open, an object moves along the narrow stage, performs turns or pauses at the end, and then returns so the next “performer” can appear.
Lighting and sound can change for each object, letting figures, snacks and even a bottle of shichimi spice receive full runway treatment. Magnets and a moving platform handle the automatic performer changes.
If the model cannot walk, simply make the runway do the walking instead. Suddenly even a spice bottle has stage presence.
Hasbro's 1999 Easy-Bake Kitchen is a plastic kitchen playset that straps over a standard PC keyboard. Moving its measuring cup, egg, mixer, oven door and other controls simply presses real keys underneath, letting children operate the accompanying CD-ROM cooking game through a physical toy interface.
LGR's Clint Basinger revisited the hardware in September 2026 and eventually remapped its controls to play DOOM II. A toy designed to turn a keyboard into a pretend kitchen becomes, decades later, an extremely impractical FPS controller.
If the toy kitchen is really just pressing keyboard keys, then of course the egg and mixer can control DOOM. The logic is sound; seeing it happen is wonderfully wrong.
The Volkswagen-branded e-bike from n+ Bikes is promoted around a suite of safety technology including a rear camera, radar, smart glasses, a connected helmet and handlebar displays. When a Gizmodo reporter tried the bike at IFA 2026, however, the battery packs had not arrived at the venue because of a logistics delay.
Without the battery, the powered riding experience and most of the headline electronics could not be tested on the bike. The technology-heavy e-bike ended up being ridden largely as an ordinary bicycle.
Add enough connected safety hardware and the demo can become wonderfully simple when one battery shipment is missing. Underneath all the technology, it turns out there was still a bicycle.
Peter Ryseck built a system that keeps a long pole standing on one end by mounting a quadcopter-like set of propellers at the top. The propellers are not used to lift the pole away from the ground; instead, the controller changes thrust to counter each developing tilt.
The project had to deal with motor response, oscillation and even flex in the pole itself. The final control strategy can let the pole lean slightly into the wind rather than demanding a perfectly vertical pose.
The goal is a pole that appears to stand still, achieved by putting a small storm of actively controlled propellers on top. Maintaining “nothing happening” takes an impressive amount of happening.
Instead of making the random-number algorithm smarter, the solution is to make a DVD drive physically roll dice. That's a dramatic return to hardware.