Make a Robotic

Master Lock combination padlocks have been known to be vulnerable to an attack that reduces their 64,000 possible combinations down to 100. I've devised a new attack for cracking any Master combo lock that simplifies the process and reduces the amount of work down to only 8 co ...more

There's a lot more to your iPhone's dialer screen than just entering phone numbers and hitting the green call button. It's not very obvious, but there are secret codes that you can enter on the dialer to find out information about your device, help troubleshoot issues, and mas ...more

Update (February 2019): The methods below will help on older Android versions, but we've recently revisited this topic. So if you have a newer Android phone and you want to get rid of Google, head here. It seems like every week there is a new exposé revealing all of the backr ...more

Microcontrollers are great. You can do anything from water your garden to catch wildlife trash diggers in the act—and on the cheap. I prefer to use the Arduino microcontroller because of the large and helpful community built around the website. Though it is my favorite, there ...more

I often read ebooks on my iPhone while I walk, but being glued to my screen is a good way to get run over or cursed at. To save my physical and social hide, I use this trick to get my iPhone to read ebooks and articles out loud, turning my whole text library into de facto audi ...more

You're never too young to start building your vast swarm of robotic minions. Taking over the world requires a whole lot of robots. The sheer volume of robots needed means your first wave will have to be made of cheap materials. After they take over key resources, you can upgra ...more

Out of the box, Apple's digital assistant could be a godsend or a nuisance, depending on your daily interactions it. No matter which camp you fall into, Siri can always be better suited to your personal needs with a little customization. You can make Siri a powerhouse not to b ...more

There are a lot of exciting improvements in store for Siri in iOS 11. Apple showed off some of the highlights at WWDC, but there are five changes in particular that you don't want to miss. From a new voice to a cool on-device learning feature, this Siri update could have a pr ...more

Arachnophilia and technosexuals rejoice. This whimsical, skittering robot takes only 5 minutes of tinkering. This simple toy is made possible with a bit of solder, AAA battery, copper wire and an old mobile phone's vibrating motor. Like the EvilMadScientist's Bristlebot, this ...more

This amazing ball catching robot named TOTO (Tracking of Thrown Objects) has been built to speed up "fully automated production systems...where parts will be transported between workstations by robotic throwing and catching". I'd love to see multiples of this robot in action, ...more

Who needs to go to bartending school when you've got the Inebriator to mix your favorite drinks for you? Want a cosmopolitan? No problem. Press a button. Want a tequila sunrise? Sure thing. Press a button. As long as you've got a good supply of liquor and mixers, the Inebriato ...more

The Kinect for Xbox 360 and PlayStation Move might be fun to play with, but people do not look very cool while they're doing it. Air guitar is not particularly flattering (even if done on stage), and neither is air-anything else, as pleasurable as it might be. This is why I fi ...more

With the release of the Pixel 2 XL and the iPhone X, smartphones have hit a new high not just in price, but also raw processing power. These new flagships not only cost more than twice as much as an Xbox One or PlayStation 4, they have also become almost as powerful as far as ...more

When it comes to platform games on mobile, endless runners are some of the hardest to play since they can go on seemingly forever. There's always room for improvement since your goal is to beat your previous score (or someone else's high score). But which endless running games ...more

You're hellbent on taking over the world, but one race of robotic minions isn't enough for you. With your hexapod robots acting as your ground forces, it's only natural to take to the skies. These cardboard quadcopters are the perfect air force for you. Combined, you are mere ...more

Steam has been a game-changer in the PC indie game market over the last eight years, making smaller games available to millions of users at lower prices than ever before. And few times in those eight years have there been as much indie awesomeness on sale for as little money a ...more

For some reason I find this hilarious. This chair's got perseverance. Sure, he's slow, but it's worth the wait. More information at Robotic Chair.

In 2007, Nintendo introduced the world to motion control video games with the Wii. Microsoft and Sony built on Nintendo's phenomenal success and released their own motion control products for the XBox 360 and Playstation 3 late in 2010: the Kinect and the Move. The Move is bas ...more

Here's a two-in-one "tutorial" for you today; how to fold a paper airplane, and how to execute a belated St. Patrick's Day manicure. Just follow along and do as the da Vinci does—our adroit instructor is a surgical robot, with a hefty price tag of approximately 1.3 million dol ...more

War leaves a lot of stuff behind. Torn families, delegitimized institutions, mass graves, and unexploded ordinances litter the post occupation landscape. Whether or not you have driven the imperialist out, or are still in the phase of armed resistance, you will need the abilit ...more

The war against machines is near, thanks to Cyberdyne... I mean... the German Aerospace Center. The DLR Hand Arm System is a terminator-like anthropomorphic appendage that functions just as a normal human hand and arm would. Only it's way more durable and can take a beating fr ...more

Holy Bejesus! Watch as these factory workers stuff playing card decks at robotic turbo speed. Insanely fast. China is kicking everyone's ass... very quickly. **If you're interested in seeing behind-the-scenes footage of China's factories, check out photographer Edward Burtyns ...more

Google's text-to-speech engine is getting pretty good these days. In a recent update, the computerized voice that reads on screen text (like Google Now search results) got an audio quality bump that brought its clarity up to its highest level yet. And with each update, that ro ...more

It took him a year to build and about $30,000 in parts, but Steve Hassenplug has created a truly magnificent robotic chess set, inspired by the magical chessboard in the first Harry Potter movie. Quite a task, but Hassenplug did an incredible job! Via PopSci: "Hassenplug and ...more

The da Vinci robot has proven to be an endless source of amusement to surgeons everywhere; in Japan, it folds origami cranes, at the state of Washington's Swedish Medical Center, it flies paper airplanes and gives manicures. It's a battle of the hospitals—who can make their pr ...more

I love robots. They have the potential to evolve into Asimovian destroyers of the human species, but have only just mastered the art of cleaning my rug. They have an ever increasing cool factor and a growing number of cheap and simple components that let the hobby roboticist r ...more

via Wired World's Largest Panoramic Photo is Bigger than 1200 Billboards Below is 45 gigapixels of Dubai. Canon's 7D is yet again changing the game as part of a mind-boggling year in DSLR, filmmaking and photography history! GigaPan's Robotic Mount has created the Worlds L ...more

WonderHowTo is made up of niche communities called Worlds. If you've yet to join one (or create your own), get a taste below of what's going on in the community. Check in every Wednesday for a roundup of new activities and projects. Thanks to all of our active moderators and ...more

What's the geekiest way to propose to your girlfriend? Make a robot do it for you. As a self-declared dork, RangerX52 wanted to take a simple task like proposing and make it as utterly complicated as possibly—by having a DIY robot do it for him. With knowledge of his lady's i ...more

HBO's Westworld has touched down on iOS as a mobile game, giving players the chance to manage their very own futuristic theme park set in the wild west. Unfortunately, the game is currently only available in select countries as a soft launch until its fully developed. But if y ...more

Before Google I/O 2018, the Google Assistant for Android and iOS had only two available voice options to choose from — a robotic female and male voice. But there are now six additional voices, and these ones sound way more natural than any other mobile voice assistant (plus, J ...more

PETA wouldn't consider James Auger and Jimmy Loizeau's ingenious flypaper clock very eco-friendly, but I might beg to differ. The clock doesn't require any electricity or batteries. Instead it captures flies and converts the bodies of the dead insects into energy. Eight dead f ...more

bObsweep robotic vacuums automatically clean whenever instructed to do so by an owner or because of a pre-programmed schedule. The first step to making a schedule is telling Bob the time and date, so your vacuum can correctly follow your settings. Video: . Set the Date and Ti ...more

HBO is only a couple of episodes into the second season of Westworld, the television version of the classic science fiction movie about a robot resort gone awry, and the fan theories about the show are already reaching Season 1 levels of weirdness. But while you were obsessed ...more

How can an orchestra be stupid, one may ask? Well, when musically measuring a toaster next to a cello, one device certainly comes across as inherently… dumber. Think 200 vintage vacuum cleaners, blenders and washing machines assembled into a whirling, ringing, humming cacophon ...more

Robotic Rubik's Cube solvers are nothing new. We've seen ones that are run on Android, made of LEGO Mindstorms, and faster than the world record holder. The most recent Rubik's Cube robot making the news was made by high school student James Watson as a school project, but it' ...more

Meet DareDroid: sexy nurse, geek couture and mobile bartender, engineered into an all-in-one technologically advanced garment. Created by fashion designer Anouk Wipprecht, hacker Marius Kintel, and sculptor Jane Tingley, the team calls themselves the Modern Nomads (MoNo), and ...more

Robotics company Festo Bionics has released footage of a robotic manipulator arm modeled after an elephant's trunk. The first video in the gallery below is the concept animation; click on the second video to see the real thing in action. (Love how the grabbers hand off "giant ...more

Inspired by Cornell's new, innovative robotic gripper (a sort of shape-shifting balloon hand), Steve Norris of Norris Labs decided to go DIY and make his own home-brewed replica at a lower cost. "I constructed my own version of the Cornell University Universal Gripper using p ...more

If you're looking for your gaming fix and nothing on the App Store is piquing your interest, you should give soft-launched games a try. These are games that haven't been released in the US yet because they're getting tested in smaller markets first. Using a simple workaround, ...more

Google's former Self-Driving Car project, now graduated from Alphabet's X division as Waymo, has found a collaborator and potential new partner in Honda. This is an interesting turn of events given traditional automakers' reluctance to work with driverless-car startups over th ...more

So, you want to throw a steampunk party and you have almost everything in place—your steampunk persona and iPhone are ready to go, and you've even got your own steampunk straight razor. What's missing? The Elixirator, that's what. The Elixirator is a steampunk cocktail-making ...more

For those who don't know, LEGO recently came out with a new line called Monster Fighters. This set is about fighting monsters, sure, but it's about fighting classic monsters in a Steampunk universe. Just look at this promotional picture from the LEGO site: That LEGO dude (prop ...more

Japanese artist and visual designer Akira Nakayasu creates robotic plants that not only respond to human touch, but anticipate human touch. The first video in the gallery below, entitled "Plant", was inspired by grass blowing in the wind. The robotic plant has 169 artificial ...more

Meet Rex, the Robotic Exoskeleton—a pair of wearable robotic legs that promise to help the wheelchair-bound get back on their feet. The wealthy ones, at least. The device is expected to retail for around $150,000 stateside. Via Rex Bionics: Rex, the Robotic Exoskeleton, is a ...more

Erudite. Barbiturate. Cacophony. Denouement. Okay, that last word is technically French, but words like these make the average person sweat, and it turns out that the key to learning how to pronounce them once and for all just might be getting them wrong. How We End Up Pronou ...more

Every bObi robotic vacuum works best with a clean dustbin and brushes. Luckily all of bObi's parts are easy to remove and wash, so you can do so whenever you notice large amounts of debris collected. The following instructions lay out all the steps for regular maintenance of ...more