Pneumatic Zombie Flails About Violently

Zombie flails its body violently under pneumatic control using a 2x4 linkage system.

Jeremy Cook
4 years agoHalloween Hacks

With Halloween just around the corner, many are preparing scary decorations. If you’re going to put something out, you probably have a plan already, but this pneumatic “groundbreaker” zombie from builder trimbandit could be a great idea for next year. Or maybe it could even be a last-minute prop if you happen to have a couple pneumatic cylinders and associated equipment lying around.

While results, as seen in the first video below, are spectacularly spooky, the internals on display in the second clip are in fact rather simple. The “bones” of the structure are lengths of 2x4 wood cut to size and joined with hinges. Pneumatic cylinders are connected at the zombie’s elbow joints, rapidly moving it up and down in a clever linkage setup. The head, made from a foam mannequin model, is fixed to the base of the shoulders via a PVC pipe, and made to rotate with bungee straps attached to the arms.

A compressor feeds a manifold that distributes air to a pair of solenoid valves, and a controller activates the solenoids, along with a speaker and strobe in response to a motion sensor. While control details are vague, one could see such a system being activated by an Arduino or Raspberry Pi. Perhaps several zombies could even be coordinated for use as your own personal undead army!

For another (rather more involved) zombie idea, be sure to check out this Zombie Containment Unit by Glen Akins.

Jeremy Cook
Engineer, maker of random contraptions, love learning about tech. Write for various publications, including Hackster!
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