Each Halloween brings another battle to see who can carve the most intricate image into the side of a pumpkin. Engineer and hardcore geek Shane Wighton of Stuff Made Here designed and built his own robot to see how close he could get to the perfect pumpkin photo of his wife. It's about as crazy as it sounds.
Wighton seems to have a passion for applying high levels design and engineering, having previously made a basketball hoop that moves to catch every shot, and a machine that will automatically cut your own hair.
Perhaps the biggest part of the challenge when it came to Wighton's plan was to take a two-dimensional image and map it onto something that vaguely resembles a sphere. If you love problem-solving, you will love this video.
Wighton isn’t the first to attempt to automate this process using a CNC machine, but he’s probably the first to try and map the image using the Mercator principle, which might yet need some refinement.
Of course, if you don’t have several tends of thousands of dollars’ worth of machines, robots, tools, and parts in your basement — not to mention a very patient partner — you might want to stick to something a little more traditional.
Will you be building a robot in your basement this year? Let us know in the comments below.
