Giant Spider - Halloween 2008
We built this animatronic giant spider as the centerpiece to our 2008 yard haunt. It was built up with a wooden frame surrounded by chicken wire and
finally covered with monster mud. A wiper motor was installed on the underside of the head that acted as a cam to move the 8 legs. The original
mechanical design proved to be a complete failure, due in part to the fact that the threads on the wiper motor shaft were stripped and it was impossible
to keep the crank arm tight on the shaft. I probably could have used some JB Weld to fix that problem, but there was so much friction on the caster wheels
under each leg that I ended up scrapping that entire design at the last minute. I replaced the cams with a simple crank arm and ran fishing line to
each of the legs, much like an upside-down flying crank ghost. This worked rather well, although the fishing line kept snapping every day because of
all the friction on the fishing lines. I did not have time to design it better.
Alas, after Halloween 2008, I decided not to save the 100 lb spider. The giant
spider is no more. In 2009 we introduced a smaller spider that slowly moves back and forth on the ground.