The Halloween hacks are rolling in late this year, but we’re delighted to see that [DJ Sures] finished his borg costume in time. It is made up of a hodge-podge of items from different cultures… oh wait, so are the borg. These include a set of hockey pads spray painted black with just a light misting of silver to give them some depth. After taking the image above (which mostly shows off his makeup) [DJ Sures] added an LCD screen to the chest plate and lighted electronics throughout. See for yourself after the break.

If you liked this you might take a look at his singing spark plug.

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Here’s a great way to guard your front door on Halloween. [Sam Seide] built a motion controlled talking skeleton. The electronics are fairly straight forward, consisting of an Arduino, WAV shield, PIR motion sensor, servo motor for the jaw, and a couple of red LEDs for the eyes. But [Sam] did some really neat things in the design of the skeleton itself. As we saw with the puking pirate, he built the body out of PVC so that he can take it apart for easy storage. Under the reaper robe you’ll find a set of powered computer speakers that connect to the WAV shield. The servo motor is mounted in the skull and moves the jaw using a small wire arm. Since the whole thing is a bit flexible (thanks to the PVC), the torque of the motor causes the skeleton to move around, adding a touch of life. Don’t miss the well-made video walkthrough after the break.

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That’s it… the controller and the video game system all in one. This is the standalone version of [Rossum's] RBox. We looked in on the prototype in June but that was using a bulky development board. You can see the CR1632 button battery, which powers the device for about four hours, sandwiched in between the joystick and the mainboard. Exiting the image on the right are cables used to connect mono-audio and video to a TV via RCA connectors. There’s no port for interchangeable cartridges which means that all game data must be programmed into the ARM Cortex M0 processors. See [Rossum's] demo video after the break.

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We’ve always felt that the hacker community is a unique one. Make reader [Gnomic] is reinforcing that feeling by running his own contest with unused equipment. [Gnomic] is offering a free Robot lawnmower to someone, as long as they send the completed project writeup to Make.  The mower is a Robomower RL 850 and you have to pick it up in Richmond Va. To enter, you have to email [Gnomic] your proposal within the next 10 days. He will then choose what he feels would be the most interesting one to give the mower to.  We’d love to see one of our readers get in on the action with this one. We would really love to see our logo on the final robot when it gets published to Make.

What takes eight hours to solder and uses more shrink tubing that you thought imaginable? An LED matrix installed in a real pumpkin. When I mentioned that we’d like the LED pumpkin in last Friday’s post scaled up to a full LED matrix I had no idea it would be me doing the work. But [Caleb] and I thought it might be just the thing to present for the hacker’s favorite holiday.

Installed in the autumn vegetable is a marquee made from a 5×14 matrix of light emitting diodes. I spaced them by printing out a grid on the computer, taping it to the pumpkin, and drilling 70 holes in the front of the thing. The real trouble came when inserting all of the LEDs from the inside; each of them has four wires soldered to it, creating a net of black wiring. Above you can see it turned out great. This is a shot of it scrolling the message HAPPY HALLOWEEN.

Join us after the break for video of this prop. But we’re not just sharing the finished product. I’ll take you through the build process. Along the way you’ll learn the design considerations that go into an LED matrix and how you can use these techniques to build your own in any size and configuration you desire.

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[Ben Heck] is in the Halloween spirit with his Portal inspired “see through” t-shirt. That is, a thin lcd is mounted on [Ben's] chest, with a not as thin camera mounted on his back; when the system is running, everything behind him is captured by the camera and displayed on the LCD. The concept isn’t exactly new by any means, often by the name of “gaping holes” or “hole through body” or more, but the project goes to show that a creative costume isn’t always the most elaborate, expensive, or even a new idea. Catch a video of how to make your own Portal shirt, after the jump. Oh, and you can win the Portal shirt here.

[via The Daily What]

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Picking up a raw egg is not something we’d think a robot gripper would be good at. But this model uses a bulbous tip instead of claw, which makes crushing the object less of a concern.

That tip is kind of like a balloon. It is stretched full with coffee grounds but air can also be pumped in and sucked out. When it comes time to grip an object, a bit of air is pumped in and the bulb is pressed down on its target. Once in place all of the air is sucked out, locking the coffee grounds around the object. Take a look after the break to see just how many things can be gripped with this technique.

Now the real question, can it bring me a beer?

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It looks like the iPhone lock screen provides just a marginal level of protection. [Jordand321] discovered a key combination that opens the contact app on a locked iPhone. Just tap the emergency call button, enter the pound sign three times (###), then tap call and immediately tap the lock key on the top of the phone. If this is confusing just look at the video after the break to see how it’s done.

You don’t get access to everything on the device. But this does give an attacker access to all of your contact data and allows that person to make any calls they desire.

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