Disneyland Paris debuts next-gen robotic Olaf character

Bruce Vaughn, President and Chief Creative Officer of Walt Disney Imagineering, and Natacha Rafalski, Présidente of Disneyland Paris, introduced at Disneyland Paris a next-generation robotic character representing Olaf, the beloved snowman from Walt Disney Animation Studios’ Frozen.

From the way he moves to the way he looks, every gesture and detail is crafted to reflect the Olaf audiences have seen in the film — alive, curious, and unmistakably himself.

Details from an arXiv paper show Olaf having at least three computers including a Jetson and a Raspberry Pi.

Read more in the article here.

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Scaled Up Christmas Tree

Original LEGO Model with 3D printed tree in background from Ellis Ware

 

Did you ever want to feel like one of The Littles assembling a LEGO Christmas Tree? Ruth Amos and Ellis Ware on YouTube achieved this specific goal and nabbed an equally specific Guinness World Record along the way. I love the concept of taking lego instructions and just sizing up.

See more an YouTube:

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How to Build a Generation Ship #SciFiSunday

Once upon a time, science fiction writer Harlan Ellison wrote a story called Phoenix Without Ashes, based on a TV show he created with Ben Bova. The story starts when Devon is exiled from the Amish community he has called home for his entire life. Once exiled, Devon discovers a metal passage that leads him to a shocking discovery: he’s been on a spaceship the entire time. Specifically he’s on a generation ship, adrift in space so long that many don’t even know the nature of their reality. Here’s more on generation ships from Centauri Dreams:

If you want to explore the history of generation ships in science fiction, you might start with a story by Don Wilcox. Writing in 1940 for Amazing Stories, Wilcox conceived a slick plot device in his “The Voyage that Lasted 600 Years,” a single individual who comes out of hibernation once every century to see how the rest of the initial crew of 33 is handling their job of keeping the species going. Only room for one hibernation chamber, and this means our man becomes a window into social change aboard the craft. The breakdown he witnesses forces him into drastic action to save the mission.

In a plot twist that anticipates A. E. van Vogt’s far superior “Far Centaurus,” Wilcox has his ragged band finally arrive after many generations at destination, only to find that a faster technology has long ago planted a colony there. Granted, Konstantin Tsiolkovsky had written about generation ships before Wilcox, and in a far more learned way. Fictional precedents like Laurence Manning’s “The Living Galaxy” (Wonder Stories, 1934) and Olaf Stapledon’s Star Maker (1937) imagined entire worlds as stellar wanderers, but we can give Wilcox a nod for getting the concept of generations living and dying aboard a constructed craft in front of the public. Heinlein’s “Universe” wouldn’t appear until 1941, and the generation ship was soon to become a science fiction trope.

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Writing Science Fiction for Kids #SciFiSunday

Hollywood has produced many great science fiction movies written for families: E.T., WALL-E, Star Wars, that sort of thing. These are movies designed to appeal to the whole family. But science fiction movies that are made specifically for younger children are few and far between. So how do you go about writing science fiction for children? Here’s more from Sci-Fi Bloggers:

WondLa is what a children’s television series should aspire to be. It’s kid-friendly but doesn’t disrespect its audience. It uses tropes but doesn’t fall into them completely. Despite having a very fleshed-out world to build, it doesn’t stop and shove exposition. At every point in the first three episodes, you are expected to pay attention to small details and look for answers to its many mysteries.

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And if that wasn’t good enough, WondLa also has a great premise—at least from what I currently know is going on. It’s a classic Rapunzel situation with a sci-fi twist. Our main character—a girl named Eva, who we see grow up until she’s 16—is isolated to a small underground chamber where she’s raised by A.I.s and told she’ll eventually get to meet with other humans. But it’s implied (though not confirmed) that the system is faulty and won’t actually let her out. She may be trained in survival, science, math, and so much more in preparation, but has no understanding of how to interact with people and doesn’t quite know to distrust anything that’s presented to her. Until—as you can obviously guess—stuff goes wrong, and she has to leave the shelter to a new world.

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ARCANA Capsule is a Desktop Tarot Companion

image via Instructables user ylin63

 

Instructables user ylin63 made ARCANA capsule to “bridge the physical and digital worlds”, making a digital Tarot deck that maintains your personal touch:

It sits on your desk like a magical artifact. To use it, you simply press the little wing on the side. The device lights up with a pixel symbol, and simultaneously, the full card reading appears on your phone’s web browser.

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MagTag AR Tarot Card Reading

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Super Simple Snow Globe with Circuit Playground Express & MakeCode

Use the Circuit Playground Snow Globe Kit and Make Code to whip up a magical snowscape this winter season! Follow along with Liz Clark on the Adafruit Learning System.

Although people may have mixed feelings about snow, I think we can all agree that snow globes are pretty sweet. You can make one that’s even sweeter than the average globe using a Circuit Playground Express board and MakeCode to have a musical NeoPixel orb of holiday fun!

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Adafruit’s Top Ten Socials of 2025 #AdafruitTopTen

While you can find Adafruit on TikTok, Facebook, Instagram, X, Threads, Mastodon, Bluesky and LinkedIn, most of you are following along on Facebook, Instagram and X. Thanks, we like sharing all the things with ya! Let’s take a walk down memory lane and dig up what we experienced together this past year on Facebook, Instagram and X:

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10: Sounds like something cool is coming along… more soon

9: We shared a blog post about how to turn off Slack AI settings and a couple weeks later in early July the converstation continued over on Facebook and Instagram. Here’s the guide we published in the Adafruit Learning System

8: UPDATED GUIDE: Adafruit 2.9″ eInk Display Breakouts and FeatherWings Here’s the guide we updated. Did not realize y’all were so into eInk display breakouts and featherwings!

7: It’s Adafruit!

HI ALL! Did not plan to posting today, but can help some folks out and suggest they check out the about page for info about Adafruit because of something they saw on Twitter and had questions about where we are located, etc. (USA) (Tariff related, probably -pt)

6: WipperSnapper Update, and New Playground Notes! What’s new with Adafruit IO and the Adafruit Learning System

5: Back in October we dug up some photos of our visit to the White House and it was a hit on Facebook, Instagram and X

4: We also spoke about Qualcomm’s Latest AI Play which got your attention on X and Facebook

3: Instagram has been LOVING our USB MIDI Keyset Controller guide

2: Over on X we talked about Arduino’s post reframes the backlash as a misunderstanding, but it skips every issue raised

1: Tariffs ruled across Instagram, X and Facebook. Tariffs just got real: our first $36K bill with 125% + 20% + 25% markup hits hard Here’s the post on the blog.

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