Lego Tardis Spins Through The Void

November 12, 2018 by Rich Hawkes 8 Comments

Using LEGO Technic gears and rods seems like a great way of bringing animation to your regular LEGO creation. Using gears and crank shafts you can animate models from your favorite TV show or movie like LEGO kinetic sculpture maker, [Josh DaVid] has done when he created a spinning TARDIS. Crank the handle and the sculpture spins through space and time.

The large gear stays in place. The hidden gears, turned by the crank, rotate a shaft from below that goes through the large gear making the TARDIS rotate around the main axis. Connected to the TARDIS model is a smaller gear, at an angle, that meshes with the larger, stationary, gear. This smaller gear is what causes the TARDIS to rotate around its own axis while the whole thing rotates around the main axis. If your hand gets too tired, you can substitute a LEGO motor.

It’s a neat effect, and you can get the plans [Josh]’s Etsy page. The best part, however, is that you can get a set with all the parts as well! The TARDIS is a popular item here and we’ve had plenty of projects with it as the focus: Everything from a tree topper to sub-woofers. The only question we have, of course, is, ‘Is it bigger on the inside?’

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This TARDIS Is Bigger On The Inside

September 21, 2018 by Rich Hawkes 24 Comments

A few months ago, YouTube user [Maladroit Modeller] uploaded a video of his model TARDIS from Doctor Who which shows an inside that’s bigger than the outside. Recently, [Maladroit Modeller] posted some pictures and has now uploaded a video showing how it’s done.

The TARDIS model itself is a 3:75 scale “Spin & Fly” model. The case to show everything off is built from foam core and the interior is built from foam core, silver paper, cardboard, styrene and other bits and pieces. There looks like there’s some EL wire being used, too, along with a lot of LEDs.

The build looks great and the illusion works very nicely in the video. Check out the video after the break, and then check out the “how it’s done” video for an explanation. Continue reading “This TARDIS Is Bigger On The Inside” →

Building This TARDIS Is Anything But A Snap

September 23, 2017 by James Hobson 9 Comments

As an avid fan of the show Dr Who, [Adam Sifounakis] saw a model for a laser-cut TARDIS that piqued his curiosity that eventually grew into a multi-week project involving multiple setbacks, missteps, revamps and — finally — gratification. Behold, his sound activated TARDIS.

First and foremost, assembling and painting the model was a fun puzzle — despite a few trips to the store — with a little backtracking on the painting due to impatience. Next, the creation of a pulsing soft white LED circuit timed with an audio clip to really sell the image of a mini-TARDIS proved to be a tedious ordeal, paying off in the end with a satisfying glow through the vellum-diffused windows on the model.

How to trigger the lights? [Sifounakis] initially wanted a capacitive sensor to trigger the sound effects, but that way lay dragons — and madness — so he went with snap-activated effect to activate the TARDIS like the Doctor himself. After struggling with building his own microphone setup, he switched to an electret mic with adjustable gain which worked like a charm. Setting up this TARDIS’ Adafruit Pro Trinket brain involved a snag or two, and after that it was smooth sailing!

Until he hit another hitch with the power circuit too, that is. Luckily enough, adding a capacitor to give the circuit a bit more juice on boot solved the issue. All that was left to do was dismantle and rebuild his circuit after all this troubleshooting and substitutions, and — finally — install it in his model.

With much satisfaction and a final rework of the LED pulsing effect, it was done. Check it out!

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Hackaday Links: August 23, 2015

August 23, 2015 by Brian Benchoff 2 Comments

Dutch security conference! It’s called hardwear.io, it’ll be in The Hague during the last week of September, and they have the CTO of Silent Circle/Blackphone giving the keynote.

Baltimore’s awesome despite what the majority of the population says, and they have a few hackerspaces. One of them has an Indiegogo going right now to save the space. Want a tour of the space? Here you go.

[Fran Blanche] made it on to the Amp Hour. Included in this episode are discussions about the boutique guitar pedal market and the realities of discarded technology that took us to the moon.

Speaking of electronics podcasts, SolderSmoke is 10 years old now.

TARDIS-shaped guitars are nothing new, but [Gary] from the LVL1 hackerspace in Louisville, KY is making an acoustic one. The neck is, of course, taken from another guitar but the entire TARDIS-shaped body is custom-made. Now do resonance calculations on something that’s bigger on the inside.

Think German-made means German quality? [AvE], [Chris], or whatever we call him did a teardown of a Festool Track Saw. It’s a thousand dollar tool that will start to stink in a few years and has bearings that don’t make any sense.

Love 8-bit? There’s a Kickstarter from 8-bit generation for a documentary about the love, loss, resurrection and continuation of old computers. Dozens of very interesting interviews including one from our own [Bil Herd]

This Party Jukebox Is Bigger On The Inside

February 21, 2014 by James Hobson 7 Comments

In honor of the recent 50th anniversary of Doctor Who, [David Prouty] decided to build a 1/3rd scale replica of the Tardis. He also decided to give it a few extra features on the inside… Introducing the Recycled Tardis Jukebox!

It was constructed primarily out of recycled cardboard boxes (pizza, FedEx, UHaul, etc) and [David] has done an amazing job painting and detailing it!

Since it’s so big, [David] wanted it to be functional too, so he’s added Bluetooth speakers, sound activated lights, disco balls, and even a fog machine on the inside. It’s all controlled wirelessly by remote, and it’s sure to be a hit at any party he decides to throw.

Stick around for the videos showing it in action — and of course, making our favorite sound VWORRRRRP VWRORRRP VWORRRP!

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TARDIS Alarm Doesn’t Go VWORRRRRP VWRORRRP VWORRRP

February 11, 2014 by James Hobson 11 Comments

tardis alarm

Motion sensors are pretty useful — but they’re just so darn ugly! Well — if you’re a Whovian — maybe this hack is for you. A 3D printed TARDIS Motion Sensor Alarm!

[Malcolm] has a home security system that uses a series of motion sensors to detect movement in the house. When movement is detected an indicator LED turns on, and a wireless signal is sent to the main control system. So after discovering a nice 3D model of the TARDIS (Time and Relative Dimension in Space) on Thingiverse, he decided to see if he could hack one of his motion sensors to fit inside of it instead.

As it turns out, it was as simple as removing the sensor’s external shell, 3D printing a few support pieces inside of the TARDIS, and soldering on a bright blue LED to replace the dinky indicator light. Simple, but effective!

Don’t forget to check out the following video. Allons-y!

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Hackaday Links: September 29, 2013

September 29, 2013 by Mike Szczys 9 Comments

We would be remiss if we didn’t mention that all of SparkFun’s open source hardware is now on Upverter.

Not wanting to tie up an iPad as a mini-gaming cabinet [Hartmut] hacked an Arcadi cabinet to use EUzebox instead.

Time travel happens in the bedroom as well. But only if you have your very own Tardis entrance. [AlmostUseful] pulled this off with just a bit of word trim and a very nice paint job. [via Reddit]

[Pierre] tricks an iPhone fingerprint scanner by making a replica out of hot glue.

Some of the guys from our parent company were over in Shanghai on business. [Aleksandar Bradic] made time to visit the Shanghai hackerspace while in town and wrote about the experience over on their engineering blog.

[Gregory Charvat] is a busy guy. In fact we’ve got a juicy hack of his saved up that we still need to wrap our minds around before featuring. In the mean time check out the Intern-built coffee can radar that he took over and tested on a multi-million dollar Spherical Near Field Range.

And finally, everyone loves coffee hacks, right? Here’s what [Manos] calls a Greek style instant coffee machine.