Animatronic Frankenstein Machine Comes to Life

This elaborate animatronic Frankenstein scene depicts the monster coming to life. Frankenstein's monster shakes violently as he is jolted to life, then he bolts forward unexpectedly. It comes complete with integrated sound and an air compressor to power the monster.

Imagine having this in your house on Halloween! Sadly, not all of us have $7000 to spend on a huge, detailed haunted house prop. Perhaps, though this can serve as inspiration for a small scale automaton or encourage you to make your own animatronic holiday displays.

Visit The Fright Catalog online for this and other animatronic Halloween props.

Horror & Halloween Animatronics

FrightCatalog.com has an entire section dedicated to animated horror and Halloween automata or animatronics. From the home page navigate to "Halloween Props" then "Animated".

They offer 75 items ranging from a simple spinning motor for animating your own Halloween props ($16.99) to a 12 foot animated flying saucer ($29,000.00). Fair warning: some of this stuff is pretty gory, but they are horror props after all.

Shown here is an AMAZING realistic alligator automaton. It may set you back $8,900.00, but I ask you: how much should the power to send someone into cardiac arrest cost?

From FrightCatalog.com
Completely realistic alligator lunges forward to snap at your guests. The high speed, 5 foot forward movement and opening mouth will startle the most brazen. Includes a powerful monitor amp, cassette player, and tape of fierce alligator sounds. Requires AC power and 100 psi air compressor. Industrial strength, and extremely durable.

Visit FrightCatalog.com to check out all of their horror themed animatronics.

Automaton Top Hat with a Mechanized Surprise!

I've added a new page to my site featuring various stages of my trick Halloween top hat automaton.

On this page you will find links to:

• My concept sketch of the hat
• The mechanism inside the hat
• The finished hat
• Details of the article about the hat
• Video for Windows & MAC

Here's the link to the Halloween Hat Automaton page.

Of course you can also order MAKE magazine Halloween special edition, 2007 for all the details of construction.

The Hungry Vampire by Aquio Nishida

Aquio Nishida is an automata maker from Japan with a wonderful style. One of the remarkable things about his work is that almost every part is made from wood, including such things as axles, chains, and fasteners.

In the spirit of upcoming Halloween holiday, I wanted to showcase a Nishida automaton entitled The Hungry Vampire.

The sequence of action for this piece is described in his book: when the handle is turned the Vampire works the pedals of his robot bat. The bat opens his mouth and flaps his wings. Finally, the vampire brings his glass of red wine to his mouth to hold him over until he finds some blood to drink.

You can order Aquio Nishida's book Automata: Movable Illustration from Amazon's Japanese site.

Halloween Hat - Original Sketch

I thought you might enjoy seeing my original sketch for the trick Halloween top hat that I created and is now featured in MAKE magazine. Take a look:
My final design differed from my initial idea in several ways. The drawing shows a simple lever to raise he lid of the hat. In the real version, I used a four-bar linkage. By experimenting with the lengths of the linkages, you can actually get a motion that moves both up and out. This give the monster a more natural motion and really suggests that it is trying to scare you.

My original design also shows that the lid of the hat pulls the monster up. In the final design it's the other way around: as the monster rises, the linkage he is attached to lifts the lid of the hat out of the way.

Finally, I had planned to make my own monster out of wood. I simply ran out of time the year I built the original hat, and used a rubber finger puppet instead. It turned out to be a great choice. The yellow puppet is highly visible in low light and his upraised rubber arms shake around when he appears. Very comical.

To learn more about making animated displays for various holidays check out Animatronics: Guide to Holiday Displays.

Dug North's Trick Halloween Top Hat

Here's a little video of the hat of my design that is in the new Halloween edition of MAKE magazine.

This is the prototype shown in this movie. The model in the magazine is a bit shorter and so sits on the head better. I also used a black ribbon in place of the maroon one.

The project requires two costume "coachman's" hats, plywood, some small pieces of wood, two L-brackets, two springs, a brake cable and lever, a cable crimp, some washers and screws, and...brace yourself...a rubber finger puppet. Terrifying!

Here's a link to the MAKE store where you can get the Halloween issue, which is full of nothing but DIY Halloween projects.

Make Magazine Halloween Project Archives

I am really excited to have an article in the fist-ever Halloween Special Issue of MAKE Magazine. They have set up a dedicated Halloween section of their site. It's full of DIY Halloween projects.

They are also holding Halloween contests in a bunch of cool categories including:

• Pumpkin decorating
• Costumes
• Decorations, haunted houses, and gadgets
• Halloween Food

To enter just upload your photos to the DIY HALLOWEEN Flickr photo pool and tag them "DIYHALLOWEEN." You can also email your photos to make.magazine@gmail.com, or put them on Instructables in the MAKE group with a tag "DIYHALLOWEEN". Maybe your project will be in the second Halloween edition next year!

Check out the Make Magazine Halloween project archives.

Make Magazine Halloween Issue on Sale 9/4

MAKE magazine has its fist-ever special Halloween issue for sale on newsstands starting today, September 4th!

I have written a short article for this issue showing the reader how to make a trick top hat for the spooky holiday. The hat can be seen on this version of the cover at the bottom, in the center.

The hat holds a mechanism connected to a cable and bicycle brake lever. When the lever is squeezed, a little monster bursts out of the top of the hat. Pretty cool, if I do say so myself.

The project is fun to make, but even more fun to wear!

If you local newsstand or bookseller does not carry MAKE, you can order the Halloween issue at the MAKE online store.

Automaton How-To Article, MAKE Halloween Issue

I am very pleased to announce that I have contributed an article to MAKE Magazine's first-ever special Halloween issue. The article shows the secret behind the trick top hat I designed, so that you can build one for yourself!

You can pre-order MAKE Magazines Special Halloween Issue now. I have a feeling it is going to be a really great issue of MAKE.