Santa-pede contest winners

spw

We received several fantastic entries. We laughed, we cried, we stared at our monitors in confusion, it was fantastic. Now we're here to announce the winners of the Santa-Pede contest. If you recall, the rules were pretty simple. Aquire a dancing santa (or other holiday dancing annoying toy thingy in the same fashion), tear it apart, build something that walks out of the pieces. We were aware … [Read more...]

Reminder: Santa-Pede challenge ending soon

bbb_2

This is just a friendly reminder that our Santa-Pede challenge will be ending soon. Please send your submissions to us by emailing them to bbb@hackaday.com or by posting them in the projects section of our forum (did we mention we have a forum now?) by the end of January to be considered. We don't care how silly, stupid, simple,or slick it is, just send it to us! We have some fun prizes from … [Read more...]

Santa-Pede Challenge: Take Two

bbb_2

We are going to give the Santa-Pede Challenge another try. This time, you have till the end of January to do something (make it walk/crawl/scoot) with a dancing santa (or dancing musical holiday toy).  As you can see in my example, it doesn't have to be complicated or efficient in any way. Here are some issues and questions we would like to address: 1. Many of you suggested a banner of some … [Read more...]

Santa-pede Challenge: the conclusion

bbb_santa1

At the end of October we announced the Buy, Break, Build series kick off with "The Santa-pede Challenge".  The goal was to get your hands on one of those annoying dancing santas, tear it apart, then use its parts to build something that walks. We got our hands on some cool prizes and even got [Phillip Torrone] to be a guest judge. Join us after the break to see just what we came up with and maybe … [Read more...]

Single-motor walker for Santa-Pede Challenge inspiration

single-motor-LEGO-hexapod

This LEGO hexapod uses just one motor for motion. In the video after the break you can see that what [Valetnin Bauer] accomplished is almost magical, using just 210 parts. A central drive shaft uses worm gears to transfer motion to each of the legs. The limb mounting technique results in a sort of rowing motion that closely mimics what you'd expect to see from a biological hexapod. We thought … [Read more...]