A collection of hands to inspire your Halloween animatronics

robot-hand-roundup

Jump scares are a lot of fun, but if you want to hold the attention of all those trick-or-treaters we'd suggest a creepy prop. One of the best choices in that category is a ghoulishly lifelike hand. You can draw some inspiration from this roundup of robot hands which Adafruit put together. We've chosen four examples for the image above but there are more to be had than just these. In the upper … [Read more...]

Comparing Altium and Cadence PCB layout tools

altium-v-cadence-pcb-layout

We see a lot of projects using Eagle for the schematics and PCB layout. There are a few that use Kicad, but we hear very little about other alternatives. Recently, [Limpkin] has been working with Altium and Cadence and wrote about how they compare when it comes to PCB layout. Neither are free packages so it's good to know what you're getting into before taking the plunge. [Limpkin] begins his … [Read more...]

Improvised weapons roundup

flamethrow

There's something special about improvised weapons built for the upcoming zombie apocalypse. Whether it's a Lousiville Decapitron or a shotgun revolver, we're always fascinated by homemade weapons. Here's a few that rolled into the tip line over the last few weeks: You call that a knife? [Joerg Sprave], a.k.a. that German guy on YouTube that has fun with slingshots, built a spinning steak … [Read more...]

Page-turning book scanner roundup

bookbot

[Daniel] at diybookscanner.org posted a roundup of the best automatic book scanner builds to date. A lot of the comments on our last coverage of book scanners were summed up by [Spork] with, "No automatic page turning = no use." Turning a page in a book with a robot is really hard, though, and these builds do a really amazing job at automating very tedious work. First up is [jck57]'s servo … [Read more...]

Engine Hacks: Liquid fuel amateur rocket roundup

rocket

When the idea of an engine hacks theme was being kicked around at Hack a Day, the subject of rocket engines was one of the first to come up. There was a problem though; solid rocket motors are far too common to be interesting, and even hybrid rocket engines are becoming passé. We've never seen a liquid-fuel rocket build before, so that's what this roundup evolved into. First up is [Robert … [Read more...]

Marble machines roundup

marble-machines-roundup

[Denha's] been building marble machines for years and decided to look a back on some of his favorite marble-based builds  (translated). There's a slew of them, as well as some thoughts about each. Our favorite part is the digital simulations of the projects. For instance, the image above shows a flip-flop marble machine that was built in a physics simulator. This makes it a lot easier to plan … [Read more...]

WonderHowTo inteview of [Matthias Wandel]

Matthias Wandel's pipe organ

If you're an avid Hackaday reader chances are that you immediately recognized [Matthias Wandel's] name. He's been featured many many times to go along with his many many talents. Most notably, his ability to do some amazing things with wood. But really, it's the idea that counts, and he seems to have a duffle bag full of them. [Rachel adn Justin] over at WonderHowTo recently published a full … [Read more...]