Mechanical Donkey Kong Features Laser Cut Mario

September 22, 2012 by Brian Benchoff 4 Comments

[Martin] just sent in a project he’s been working on that takes Donkey Kong out of the realm of pixels and sprites and puts our hero Mario into a world made of laser cut plywood.

This mechanical version of Donkey Kong uses an Arduino stuffed into an old NES to control Mario jumping over ball bearing ‘barrels.’ The game starts with 12 of these barrels ready to be thrown by our favorite gorilla antagonist, which Mario carefully dodges with the help of a pair of servos.

This is only the first iteration of [Martin]’s mechanical version of Donkey Kong. The next version will keep the clever means of notifying the player if Mario is crushed by a barrel – a simple magnet glued to the back of the Mario piece – and will be shown at the UK Maker Faire next year.

Although [Martin]’s ideas for a mechanical version of Donkey Kong aren’t fully realized with this build, it’s already a build equal to electromechanical Pong.

Mechanical Skeeball Built From Knex

August 15, 2012 by Mike Szczys 18 Comments

We don’t really know what to say. This Skeeball cabinet is built entirely from Knex. It works exactly how you’d expect Skeeball to work. You plug in quarter and it dispenses balls and keeps score.

[Shadowman39] worked on the build for more than a year. Everything that went into it is a Knex part with the exception of a few rubber bands, and the paper numbers that are used on the scoreboard. There are six motors which drive the machine. Four of them are responsible for turning the scoreboard digits, the others handle ball return.

The link at the top starts off with a bunch of images of the various parts, but you’ll want to watch the video after the break for a closer look. It shows the coin hopper in greater detail. It’s built to only accept quarters and to reject all other coins.

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Antique Electromechanical Calculating Machines

March 25, 2012 by Jeremy Cook 18 Comments

The decision to use electronics for our calculating machines has long been decided. However, that doesn’t mean that mechanical engineers didn’t put up a valiant, if ultimately futile, fight. [Dvice.com] has an interesting article comparing the calculating technology of the 1960s, such as the [Haman 505], to today’s iPad.

This comparison and pictures were made possible by [Mark Glusker]’s excellent collection. These models can be divided into two categories, rotary calculators, and printing calculators. According to [Mark]‘s site, the printing calculators stayed on the market a few years after the rotary calculators, which were off the market by 1970.

Although we may never see machines like these made again, anyone even a little bit mechanically inclined would be hard pressed not to be inspired by this collection. Be sure to check out the video of a [Madas 20BTG] calculator after the break to see what one of the rotary models looks like in action! Continue reading “Antique Electromechanical Calculating Machines” →

Engine Hacks – Tesla Turbines

September 9, 2011 by Jack Buffington 20 Comments

Engine Hacks Theme banner

You probably weren’t expecting a project based on [Nikola Tesla’s] work to show up during the Engine Hacks theme. Most people know of him because of his pioneering work with high voltage equipment. Never the less, [Tesla] designed a device that later became known as the Tesla Turbine. Tesla turbines are made out of a series of thin disks attached to a central rotor. Air or steam is injected into the closed turbine housing at the outer edge of the disks. It swirls around through the turbine blades and eventually exits near the rotor. This type of turbine can achieve very high rotational speeds but doesn’t have a lot of torque, which limits their usefulness. Check out this instructable that shows you how to build your own Tesla turbine out of hard drive platters.

We have featured a Tesla turbine in the past on Hackaday. In this previous post, [Rick] shows us how to carve a pumpkin with a skill saw blade that is powered by one of these turbines.

Robotic Arm And Claw Sculpted Entirely From ShapeLock

August 19, 2011 by Mike Nathan 24 Comments

shapelock_robotic_claw

[Alexey] wrote in to share a mechanical claw (Google Translation) he has been hard at work on for quite some time. While a lot of people will turn to some sort of 3D plastic printer such as the MakerBot if they need plastic parts built, [Alexey] didn’t have access to one. Instead, he carefully crafted the entire mechanism from polycaprolactone, or as it’s more commonly known, Shapelock.

Using a wide range of tools from hair dryers and knives to lighting fixtures, he manually sculpted the claw and its control arm out of plastic, piece by piece. We are particularly impressed by the gearing he was able to cut from the plastic, which can be finicky at times.

As you can see in the video below, The claw mimics each movement he makes with the control arm via a handful of Arduino-driven servos. Everything seems to work quite well, and despite the rough translation by Google, we think this is a great project. If you are looking to do something similar yourself, he has plenty of pictures on his site, which should give you a pretty good idea as to how things were put together.

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The Lego Synchro Drive

August 4, 2011 by Jeremy Cook 16 Comments

[M-byte] wrote in to tell us about the Lego Synchro Drive. Although not a new hack, this autonomous vehicle is quite amazing in it’s simplicity. Using only one motor turning at a constant speed, this device is able to navigate obstacles by simply turning.

As [m-byte] was quick to point out, this is a simple task using modern electronics, but this drive is made using only Lego Technic parts. The machine’s motion is quite pleasing. When it hits an obstacle, the outer rotating ring stops, allowing the casters on the bottom to switch direction. One could see this invention coming out of Leonardo da Vinci’s notebook (minus the Legos).

Check out either of the embedded videos after the break to see this device in action. If you’d like to build one yourself, follow this link for very well illustrated directions. Continue reading “The Lego Synchro Drive” →

Mechanical Twitter Feed For Offline Reading

April 18, 2011 by Mike Nathan 11 Comments

Twitter can be a great tool for keeping up to date with your favorite person/company/band/etc. You can find a Twitter client for just about anything that plugs in these days, but sometimes we find that we simply need a break from our computers and smart phones – even if just for a few minutes. What happens when you want to unplug, but still need to know what everyone is up to?

[Patrick Dinnen] asked himself the same thing, and decided that the solution was a mechanical Twitter feed display. The display consists of a static user list strung up against the wall, with a mobile speech bubble mounted next to it. The bubble moves to the user who has most recently updated their status (presumably using a pair of servos), and uses a projector to display their messages. The effect is pretty neat, and it still allows you to get your Twitter fix without staring blankly at your computer screen or smart phone.

We think it would be even cooler if it used a projector on both sides, enabling it to dynamically shuffle through users and status messages at the same time. [Patrick] says that for right now it is merely a proof of concept, so there is no telling how he’ll tweak it going forward.

Continue reading to see his mechanical Twitter feed in action.

[via Adafruit]

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