Fritz’s, Fast Food With A Robotic Slant

July 6, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 27 Comments

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GhvSPgSAzsU&feature=player_embedded

While at Maker Faire K.C. this year, I was sure to take my family to a spot we tend to visit every time we are near: Fritz’s. Fritz’s is a restaurant with an interesting food delivery method. The food itself is your standard faire of burgers and fries, however the railroad theme comes into play when your food is delivered by a model train on a track that runs along the ceiling. Your tray of burgers is deposited safely on a platform that is lowered (hydraulically?) to your table. The whole thing doesn’t look terribly complex, but it is fantastic fun.

Continue reading “Fritz’s, Fast Food With A Robotic Slant” →

Kansas City MakerFaire: Greentechweekly’s Coverage

July 4, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 2 Comments

We hadn’t been at the MakerFaire long when we ran into a couple hackaday fans lugging around camera equipment and microphones. I agreed to a quick interview for their show greentechweekly.tv which was fairly painless, then we all went our separate ways. [EcoGeeco] later sent me the footage and I couldn’t help but think… these guys did a better job than I did! They asked some great questions, got some great footage, somehow managed to get decent audio too!

Continue reading “Kansas City MakerFaire: Greentechweekly’s Coverage” →

MakerFaire K.C.: Power Wheels Racing

July 4, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 10 Comments

[vimeo=44644726]

This section of the MakerFaire almost deserves an entire event of its own. I know I would happily attend a monthly match of the power racing series in my home town. To compete, you must have a modded Power Wheel. Yes, those electric kids vehicles that go really slowly across your lawn, those power wheels. You tear it apart, soup it up, and race it.

Continue reading “MakerFaire K.C.: Power Wheels Racing” →

Turning The Red Bull Cannon To Assault Mode

July 3, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 17 Comments

Once we got our official entry into the red bull creation contest finished and submitted, we figured we might as well kick things up a notch just for giggles. We set up a firing range in the basement at Squidfoo and positioned “herbert”, a mannequin that was left over in the building from a previous tenant, in the sights.

We discovered two things:
1. it is hard to aim this thing precisely. We should have found a laser to affix to the barrel.
2. “Herbert” is the toughest mannequin in the universe. He barely had a chip on him even from point blank range!

Continue reading “Turning The Red Bull Cannon To Assault Mode” →

Hack A Day’s Entry Into The Red Bull Creation Contest

July 2, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 41 Comments

We had tons of ideas, but the one that seemed most feasible, and had the least probability of causing mortal injury, was this. We created a red bull launching mortar system. The cans are launched and a parachute deploys to bring them down to the eager people below safely. I was the one in charge of construction, so the rest of the team acted as consultants for this round. I was also able to recruit a few people from here at Squidfoo for help.

Continue reading “Hack A Day’s Entry Into The Red Bull Creation Contest” →

MakerFaire K.C.: Hexy, The $200 Hexapod Project

June 29, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 9 Comments

I’ve always loved hexapods. Unfortunately, the cost to play with them can be rather daunting. Hexy is seeking to make a decent impact on that by being only $200. Yep, that $200 includes everything but the computer. You get the entire chassis, micro controller, servos, sensors, batteries, etc.

I ran into [Joe] from arcbotics showing off a hexy at the maker faire and had a few moments to check it out. He showed off some slick motion and explained some future upgrades. It looks like they are intending to go to metal gears in the commercial version which might push the cost to around $250. At this cost, this robot is comparable to the Lego NXT systems.

Continue reading “MakerFaire K.C.: Hexy, The $200 Hexapod Project” →

MakerFaire K.C.: Incredible Wasp Wings

June 28, 2012 by Caleb Kraft 16 Comments

First off let me say that the Redbull contest has consumed ALL of my time and I haven’t been able to get these Makerfaire coverage posts out as quickly as I’d hoped. Please be patient, there are several more to come I promise.

As I was walking around, I glanced up and saw a really cool set of wasp wings on a mannequin flapping away. The motion was quite nice, but I was really blown away when they folded down to a different position when not in use. I managed to track down the creator at the even and asked him some questions.

[Jordy] was commissioned to build these as part of a costume. He started by just googling ornithopter designs and ended up coming up with a rather nice contraption. Many of the bits are 3d printed specifically to his needs, including the drive gears. This must have saved tons of time and effort. As you can see in the video after the break, the motion is really nice and the fact that they fold down is really cool.

Continue reading “MakerFaire K.C.: Incredible Wasp Wings” →