This week on Maker Update: cranking up the light pipes, battling gourd bots, animatronics for your 12-ft skeleton, digital techniques for foam, bobblehead bots, and a teeny tiny TV.

This week on Maker Update: a skeleton with a drinking problem, upcycling vinyl signs, what happens when a mouse and a controller love each other very much, fake windows, Tinker tips, and adding sounds to your videos.

There’s an Instructables page up now, collecting all of the work on my cocktail machine for the 2020 Cocktail Robotics Grand Challenge.

I call it the VK-01 Off-World Bartender. It’s a Blade Runner-inspired machine that’s a mix of sci-fi and retro. Every detail I can think of is collected in the Instructable — every line of code, wiring diagram, and 3D design.

I hope it can inspire you to build your own cocktail machine. It’s been a challenging project, but one of my most rewarding yet. It was also a great motivation for becoming more comfortable with coding, 3D design, and exploring the possibilities of working with other makers and artists. I wouldn’t take back a minute of it.