From Felt To Fate: Building Your Own Sorting Hat

Ever wondered how it feels to have the Sorting Hat decide your fate? [Will Dana] wanted to find out, so he conjured a bit of Hogwarts magic, and crafted a fully animatronic Sorting Hat from scratch…

Robot Rodents: How AI Learned To Squeak And Play

In an astonishing blend of robotics and nature, SMEO—a robot rat designed by researchers in China and Germany — is fooling real rats into treating it like one of their own. What sets SMEO apa…

Bringing The Horror Of Seaman Into The Real World

A little under 25 years ago, a particularly bizarre game was released for Sega’s Dreamcast. In actually, calling it a “game” might be something of a stretch. It was more of a pet …

Screwless Eyeballs Are A Lesson In Design-For-Assembly

[Will Cogley] makes eyeballs; hey, everyone needs a hobby, and we don’t judge. Like all his animatronics, his eyeballs are wondrous mechanisms, but they do tend toward being a bit complex, es…

2023 Halloween Hackfest: Organ-playing Skeleton Livens Up Halloween

Every hacker appreciates how off-the-shelf parts can be combined into something greater, and [bryan.lowder] demonstrates this beautifully with his organ-playing skeleton, a wonderful entry to our 2…

Dead E. Ruxpin Appears Alive And Well

What are you doing to scare trick-or-treaters this Halloween? Surely something, right? Well, Hackaday alum [CameronCoward] certainly has his holiday under control with Dead E. Ruxpin, a murderous, …

Realistic Animatronic Eyes Are An Easy DIY Build

It’s not Halloween yet, but if you’re planning a technically-complicated costume, it might serve you well to start building now. To that end, here’s a guide from [Ikkalebob] on ho…

Teardown: How Many Teddy Ruxpins Does It Take To Start A Coven?

Well, I did it. I conquered my childhood fear of talking bears and brought a vintage Teddy Ruxpin animatronic stuffed bear into my home. There were and still are plenty of his brethren both young a…

Enjoy This Animatronic Eyeball’s Smooth Moves

[Enza3D] shows off a surprisingly compact articulated animatronic eyeball that can be intuitively controlled with a Wii nunchuk controller. The design uses 3D-printed parts and some tiny servos, an…

Peek Behind The Curtain Of This Robotic Mouse

At first glance, this little animatronic mouse might seem like a fairly simple affair. A door opens, our rodent friend pops its head out, looks around, and goes back in. But just like in The Wizard…

ESP32-Cam Makes A Dandy Motion Detector

Halloween is right around the corner and just about every Halloween project needs some kind of motion sensor. Historically, we’ve used IR and ultrasonic sensors but [Makers Mashup] decided to…