Doctor Who Fan Creates Vortex Manipulator
By David Hill
The vortex manipulator has proven useful when a TARDIS is not around and one needs to get to a different time and place in the Universe. One Doctor Who fan created his own non time travelling version recently.
It is always great to have a backup plan on Doctor Who. No matter what the situation is, plans just never seem to work out as anticipated, either due to the tenacity of Daleks, some other being who decides not to listen to the Doctor, or any number of other miscellaneous issues.
Even the TARDIS itself is not immune to causing problems. Sometimes, a person needs to travel through time and space without the aid of the infamous spacecraft. Maybe they simply do not have access to such a vehicle, or, as has been the case with the Doctor, the TARDIS has gone missing. What is a Time Lord, or a Time Agent, to do in such a case?
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Fortunately, there is the vortex manipulator, a device worn on the wrist that can be used to travel through time and space in a hurry should the need arise. However, while people have been quite creative in making their own mockups of the TARDIS, the vortex manipulator has been something of an untapped realm. While the few that have been created for cosplay may look nice, they are lacking in functionality.
In a recent enterprising project, a Doctor Who fan named Jeremy Lee created the Manipulator Zero — a vortex manipulator that is more worthy of the name than any other in known existence. He took the design of Captain Jack’s favored time travel device, and added in the insides of a smart watch, merging it with a Raspberry Pi Zero board, creating a powerful wrist computer that does almost everything but send the wearer through time and space. And it runs on Linux.
As of right now, the lack of the transportation features is the only complaint about the device. It is great having a computer in a stylish and well-crafted wrist piece — a lot more convenient than having to pull out one’s phone to look up information or carry out various tasks.
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Manipulator Zero Linux Smartwatch specs – credit: Jeremy Lee