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Short Hamster Videos on Vine

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I found Vine yesterday and have been recording hamster videos on it. It’s a lot of fun and super easy to make videos of your cute little pets.

What is Vine?

Vine is an app for the iOs that lets you create and upload short videos on the fly. Using the app, all you need to do is press on your screen and hold to record. The recording stops when you release your finger so by pressing and releasing multiple times, you can create stop-motion animations, combine various scenes and so on.

My hamster videos

Here’s one of the videos I uploaded to Vine:

Ichigo is rolling in his new hamster bath tub. He does this digging thing before he rolls so when I saw him start to dig, I whipped out my iPhone and recorded it.

And here’s another hamster video:

I was trying to record Ichigo running on the wheel but he stopped when I took out my phone. You can see Blueberry coming nearer and then running away from the camera.

And finally, this.

You can embed your videos on Vine on your own web site and choose whether to have a white border around it or not:

Apologies for the jerky video, that was my first attempt at recording my hamsters 🙂

Making GIFs with your hamster videos

If you love making short videos of your hamster, I’m sure this will be more convenient than recording and uploading a video to YouTube. You can even convert your videos into gifs.

Here’s what it looks like after I converted one of the clips into an animated gif:

Hamster Videos to GIF Image

Join me on Vine

I’ll be uploading lots of hamster video clips onto Vine. If you want to see more of them, follow Dwarf Hamster Blog on Vine or just come back to this blog and I’ll figure out a way to put all the Vine videos here automatically soon!

You can get Vine on the iTunes store. Leave a comment too if you’ve made any hamster videos with Vine. I would love to look at your hamster videos! <3

5 Gadgets That Use Hamster Power

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Anyone who owns hamsters know how much these little critters run but few think of harnessing this hamster power to create something functional. I was wondering whether a robo dwarf hamster might be able to run enough on their hamster wheel to charge my phone, so I went googling for an answer. Well, apparently, it can and it turns out hamsters are able to power more than just phone chargers. Here’s a list of creative hamster powered gadgets that people have come up with.

#1 Hamster Powered Shredder

hamster power - shredder

This amazing shredder runs on hamster power alone. It was created by Tom Ballhatchet for his masters in industrial design. It takes about 45 minutes of running for the hamster to shred a single piece of A4 paper ((http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/4015113/Hamster-powers-environmentally-friendly-paper-shredder.html)) — enough for the rodent to make its own bedding but not quite if you’re looking to shred office paper. I was wondering if such a product might be available for sale but unfortunately, I wasn’t able to find it anywhere. Nevertheless, this is still a great idea for using hamster power.

#2 Hamster Powered Walker

While not something with a practical use, this walker made out of plastic, gears, and a hamster ball harnesses hamster power for motion. I think the fluid movement of the walker looks like something out of a sci-fi or robot movie. If you’re interested in finding out more about this hamster-powered walker and other amazing gadgets, check out the creator’s blog at Crabfu.

#3 The HPS Hamstar – Hamster Powered Submarine

Another walker-type gadget except this time, it’s underwater! This submarine is made by two Ocean Engineering students and don’t worry, no hamsters were harmed in the process of making this gadget. This submarine was created with a hamster wheel and some other household objects, costing a total of $57. A full list of materials and details of the making of The HPS Hamstar is available at Hamster Submarine.

#4 Hamster Phone Charger


This is the hamster powered charger that sparked my original googling spree. The charger was created in 2005 by Peter Ash, a then 16-year-old boy, for his Science project. It supposedly provides up to 15 minutes talk time for a Nokia phone for every minute the hamster runs on the wheel. I think it sounds more like a marketing gimmick for Nokia than something that’s actually going to work. Plus I use an iPhone and I bet that would take more hamster power to charge.

#5 Rodent Nightlight

Finally, a video with step-by-step instructions! This nightlight turns rodent power into electricity to light up LED lights. The video recommends mice but I think hamsters may do the job just as well if you give them a chance. After all, robo dwarf hamsters have been known to run 100 miles in just one night. I might try making this myself if I can find time to do it. If the above video wasn’t clear enough, a different video here and another site here use similar materials and methods.

Do you know any other hamster powered gadgets or got ideas for one? Leave a comment below and thank you again for reading!