There was this one night in college when I was tripping on mushrooms, and my friend called me. I remember I was so incredibly baffled and impressed with the telephone. "But you’re all the way across town, and I’m here, and we’re having a conversation! How is this happening?! It’s incredible!" And it IS incredible. You don’t need to be tripping on mushrooms to understand that.

Technology is amazing. And it’s getting more amazing every day with oodles of people getting involved in the DIY/Maker movement. All over the world, this increasingly diverse community is inventing and inspiring new products, including some really awesome ones in the form of sex toys. Here are a few of my favorites.

The Hammer

Dr. Kristen Stubbs, a roboticist and maker, created The Hammer. This brilliant bit of innovation is an insertable, muscle-controlled, light-up dildo. Think of the test-your-strength games at carnivals. Same idea. When the bulb of The Hammer is squeezed, a strip of lights inside the dildo light up in proportion to the strength of the squeeze. Suggested uses include "visual feedback for Kegel exercises" and "lightsaber duels." Stubbs programmed The Hammer using the Arduino software development environment, meaning that users could easily write their own programs. Rad!

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The Hammer from Kristen Stubbs on Vimeo.

The HackOff

Orgasmatronics has recently released the "HackOff", a DIY motor-control board that makes it possible for any user to quickly and easily create vibration patterns for their own sex toys. In Orgasmatronics' online video (below), a model with no previous electronics experience hacks a bullet vibrator in less than 10 minutes. Pretty impressive. Another great thing about the Hackoff is that it’s not sex-toy specific. It’s compatible with almost any vibrator! It can even be used with multiple vibrators at once to create a "sex toy symphony". Ease and versatility. Winning!

Hacking a Vagina ... Sort Of

An engineer by day, Micah Scott had found herself a vibrator that she liked well enough, but found fault with the remote. On her website, she says that using the controls made her feel "more like I was programming a VCR than having sex." Instead, Scott developed a hands-free device that senses movement and transfers that movement to the vibrator. "Touch that invisible space above the remote, and the vibrator touches you."

If you know what a theramin is, it works similarly to that except with sonar. If you’re like me and the only thing you know about sonar is dolphins, just think of it as science-magic. Like the telephone.

See what I mean about amazing technology?! Big high-fives to these brilliant creators. They’ve made the do-it-yourself of doing yourself much more exciting! Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to get my geek on!

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