Thread: How to make a skeleton on a track?

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Hi. Is there anyway to make a skeleton travel on a track-like mechanism, go out about 5 feet, then go back? Any help is greatly appreciated.

You want the skele to go in a straight line? Can he hang or do you want him to be free standing? The latter is of course a bit more of a challenge. A garage door opener could do the trick. Might be too slow though. If you can hang it, then pullies and cables will work.

I seem to remember that a member here did this a couple of years ago - might have been Terra?

Maybe something like a drawer slider. But much LONGER......

Or a Linear Actuator.

Unistrut, and unistrut rollers, makes for a nice solid track assembly for either hanging or freestanding. From there you can propel it any number of ways...

I was thinking free standing and the slower the better! Also, no air required.

Scary Terry did it a while back. Hold on a moment, and I'll see if I can find the link to Skelevision. Ah yes, here you are. Check this out http://www.scary-terry.com/skelevision/skelevision.htm

Free standing is going to be a bit more of a challenge than a hanging version. I personally would prefer a hanging version, so the mechanism could be kept out of sight.

I built something similar a few years ago but it was not easy. My prop was the upper torso of a butler who moved in front of an upper story window and then moved back. I wanted to make it look like he walked in front of the window. The "track" was about 7' long and made of 2 pieces of aluminum angle attached to a base made of plywood. The "cart" that the torso sat on was also plywood with plastic wheels for sliding doors that have grooves in them. the wheels would ride on the edge of the aluminum angle.

For a motor I used a 12V DC gear motor that was controlled by a HB25 controller from Parallax. The motor had a sprocket that mated with a rubber belt that went all the way down to the end of the track, went around another sprocket on a bearing and both ends of the belt then attached to the cart.

At each end of the track I used a little sensor shaped like a "U" that has an led on one side and a sensor on the other side and when something gets between the sensor and LED it turns on. I used a little piece of aluminum on the cart that would break the beam and these were used to determine when the cart was at one end of the track or the other. I programmed a simple controller (could be Arduino or PICAXE or other) to drive the DC motor to simply move the cart one way down the track until the sensor detected it was at the end and then moved it back the other way. The HB-25 motor controller can be controlled by using pulses just like a RC motor so it is very easy to control and made it easy to "ramp" the speed up and down as the cart went down the track. In the end I had to use bricks (yes-actual bricks) as a counterweight for the torso because the butler actual leaned forward so the cart weighed about 25lbs when finished. He ran all night for 2 years without an issue.

Can you post a diagram? Maybe a picture or video? This sounds closest to what I want to do.

I'll see what I can do. Its up in the attic above the garage and its scary up there.