Every year at Vertigo, we have a company gift exchange (also known as "White elephant gift exchange" or "Yankee Swap" or "Dirty Santa"). This year, I got a USB Missile Launcher:

What is cool about this item is that it is completely driven through the USB connection to your computer. It requires no batteries as it just takes power from the USB connection. And of course the funnest part is you can completely control the rotation and angle through the desktop application:

Here's my attempt at getting a shot of the missile firing:

Now my task for the winter vacation will be to write an interface to the missile launcher application so we can have automated fun. Think of all the possibilities if I can program this thing!

Happy Holidays to everyone and stay tuned next year for even more fun Vertigo posts!