pencils

Rock Band Drums Modded to Use With Pencils

6:22AM Jesus Diaz | Someone called David Yoon has reconverted his Rock Band drum kit into what any student (former or not) will recognise as the One and Only True Form of Drumming: pencil drumming. He replaced “the smallish stock piezo transducers with bigger ones from Radio Shack” and reconverted the pedal with a foam and CD sandwich. This way, David says he can do the Ringo at 2am without waking up the neighbours. [Flickr] More »

Peg Pencil the Bastard Son of a, Yep, You Got It, Clothes Peg and a Pencil

12:47AM Addy Dugdale | This retractable pencil, by Yuta Watanabe, is very Muji, if you ask me. Yuta’s amusing yet functional design should have no problem finding its way onto the desk of architects, creatives, the odd eco-freako and, of course, washerwomen whose unemployment, thanks to electric clothes dryers, has meant they have had to find alternative employment as Gizmodo writers. [Sub-Studio via SwissMiss] More »

Magic Stinky Pencil Lead Lets You Smell Your Way to Happiness and Enlightenment

1:52AM Seamus Byrne | This Ain Supplio pencil lead from Pentel uses nanotechnology to release allegedly mind-expanding aromas, letting you smell your way to smartness while you scribble your meandering prose on a piece of paper. The pencil leads sell for two bucks a bag, and you can get them in three different scents, Refresh, Healing and Positive, which aromatherapists say can deeply affect you with just a few whiffs. Yeah? The fragrance is encapsulated using nanotechnology, where microscopic bubbles containing the fragrance are blended in with the lead. When you write, the fresh fragrance pops out of those tiny nanocapsules, filling the room with sweetness and enlightenment for all within noseshot. The company says the fragrances are shelf-stable for three years unopened, two years in the plastic case you see above, and three months out in the open. But aromatherapy? That’s a great idea: Make up a word, “aromatherapy,” and then build an entire industry around it. It just sounds so effective and soothing. But whether these pencil leads actually have any therapeutic value or not, it might be pleasurable to have a pleasant scent wafting about as you write your missives. Maybe someone will make an aromatherapeutic keyboard to sweeten up our skeptical and curmudgeonly Gizmodic diatribes. [Pink Tentacle] More »