Jeremy Awesome’s Amazing Technicolor Soapbox Kart

When Jeremy ‘Awesome’ Ashinghurst is not busy hacking at HaHa, researching new and interesting ways to make power tools dangerous or just generally being awesome, he’s busy riding his custom-built gravity-powered vehicle, also known as a soapbox kart, at dangerously high speeds down steep hills. Well, all of the hard work and road rash paid off for Jeremy recently when he won the grand prize in Make Magazine’s Karts and Wheels contest. Keep your eyes peeled for Make Volume 26, starring Mr. Awesome’s Kart, at your local newsstand. In the meantime, read his entire, well-documented build on the Make Blog. Go Awesome, go!

Sugru FTW!

Look what the postman brought us today! Not sure what we’re going to do with it yet, but it could have a cameo in an upcoming project… If you’re not familiar with Sugru, check it out here.

Happy First Birthday, HaHa!

Our first birthday! Seems just like yesterday, HaHa was just a twinkle in Dave’s eye. Check out this video of us enjoying some inkjet-printed confection.

Our CNC Can Kick Your CNC’s Butt!

This video is in response to the one posted here, where a Mr. Riley Porter moves a 35 pound dumbbell with his CNC. We decided to try to trump his CNC’s weight-moving ability by pushing our machine to lift and move first 45, then 55 and finally 65 pounds! We wanted to continue with the weight increases, but did not have a safe way to attach more weight to the Z-axis assembly. Our CNC build is turning out to be quite the beast. Now all it needs is a catchy name…

Our CNC Machine’s First Cuts

The CNC machine’s construction has advanced to the point where we can begin to cut items. Being a bunch of teenagers trapped in adult bodies, someone decided that we should cut a throwing star from sheet aluminum. One copy of CamBam and 6 minutes later and the star was ready to be cut! After a few adjustments and a bit snapped in half from being dragged through the metal too fast, the cutting was underway. The star took about 10 minutes to cut and was an excellent first attempt at metal production. The next step is to use the CNC to cut more precise parts for itself and help bring about the Robot Armageddon. Special thanks to our newest sponsor, CamBam, for supplying us with a free copy of their most excellent software. Note: The soundtrack to this video may change at any time as we are experimenting with YouTube’s AudioSwap feature.