A Mini 4WD model car has been modified with a mechanism that makes it jump. Creator Zeru designed custom parts for 3D printing and uses rubber bands, rather than an additional powered actuator, as the energy source for the jump.

After several prototypes and adjustments, the car successfully reached a jump height of roughly 40 centimeters using ten rubber bands. The creator sums up the motivation simply: jumping is romantic.

A motor-free, semi-automatic playing-card launcher fires one card each time its trigger is pulled. It uses a suction cup of the kind found on toy projectiles to pick up a single card at a time.

A catapult-style mechanism launches the cards, which are positioned at a slight angle to help them fly straight. Creator tekelili refined the design through several prototypes and demonstrated a card sticking into a cucumber.

The Fully Automated Motomura Shichimi Sorting Machine separates the chili peppers from shichimi, a Japanese seven-spice blend, to produce ichimi, or single-spice chili pepper seasoning. It is designed to sort different types of ingredients.

The machine also incorporates Pockét YUZAN, a large language model that predicts the comments of Kaibara Yuzan, a gourmet character from the manga Oishinbo. Its creators, the five-member group Bishoku Club, work on recreating the labor-intensive food preparation depicted in the manga using modern technology.

See the Motomura Shichimi sorting machine section in the linked report.

Google's Gboard team has unveiled Gboard Carousel, a DIY keyboard that places keys on moving conveyor belts. Rather than moving your hand across a stationary keyboard, you wait for the desired key to pass under your finger and press it at the right moment.

Each belt holds 29 keys, including direct access to uppercase and lowercase letters. The design supports one-handed input. Google does not plan to sell it, but has published open-source plans for anyone who wants to build one.

Labububot is a spherical robot made by reconstituting twelve Labubu heads into a single form at the MIT Media Lab. With faces pointing in every direction, the project uses its deliberately strange appearance as a playful critique of social robots.

It was created by Miranda Lin Li, Jake Read, and Dimitar Dimitrov. MIT Media Lab describes the result as a “Frankenstein's Monster of pop culture iconography.”

PickentCode built a computer powered entirely by a small Stirling engine heated by an alcohol lamp. Instead of a wall outlet or battery, the flame keeps a generator turning to power an ESP32-C3 and a small OLED display.

A 16-key keypad lets the machine run CHIP-8 games and custom programs. To stay within the tiny power budget, wireless features are disabled and the processor speed is reduced when full performance is not needed.

A fully FDM-printed mechanical calculator performs addition and multiplication by setting digits and turning a hand crank. It uses no electronics; rotations through printed gears perform the calculation, including a mechanical carry mechanism.

3D All Workshop spent about two months developing the design. Because FDM-printed gears are sensitive to tolerances, the mechanism went through roughly one hundred design iterations before it worked reliably.