Hummingbirds and Bees

June 26, 2025June 24, 2025 Lutin

It is that time of the year where our yard comes to life with flowers, which bring hummingbirds and bees. As we have mentioned in an early post, we designed part of our yard to encourage wildflowers and native pollinators. That one post convinced Google our site was a gardening site, so we have been reluctant to do another post, but this year was so beautiful we decided to risk it and share. If you want to encourage wildflowers, read our tips here.

Here is a list of the flowers pictured above: Alstromeria, senecio stellata, daisy, yellow roses, pink azaleas, red and yellow sparaxis, foxgloves, and more!

Here is a video of some wildflowers in our garden.

Happy Creating!

Securing Wires on Number Two and Number Three

June 19, 2025June 24, 2025 Lutin

We take Number Two and Number Three on the road a lot. While we are now experts at rewiring them after a long road trip, we started testing new ways for securing wires while still letting kids see how the robots were put together. After many designs, we settled on using clear silicon pneumatic tubes. The tube protect and secure the wires but still allow people to see how the wires attach.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

This video shows us taping the wires.

This video is us splitting the clear tubes down the middle to fit in the wires.

This video shows the process of wrapping the wires in the tube.

This is the final result.

Happy Creating!

Number 2’s and Number 3’s New Legs

June 12, 2025June 16, 2025 Lutin

From last year’s Bay Area Maker Faire we learned a lot about what is the right and wrong way for our robots to move. Our first designs did not work well on the rough and uneven surfaces, and our bi-pedal design fell over before the gates even opened. From that experience, we have opted for a centaur design for the new legs, leveraging a more powerful engine, a collapsible design, and gears.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

The legs are more simple overall but still require a lot of parts. We moved to using hardwood for the critical components for its strength.

Our design changed a lot from the one at last year’s Maker Faire. First, each leg has two wheels connected to a axel. The motor turns the axel via a chain. The biggest change is the legs now fold and unfold to make transportation easier.

Here is a close up of the finished axel on the end of the leg with one of the gears.

Here is one of the leg connecters that allows the new legs to fold for travel. They can lock in place when the robots are standing or walking.

Here are the legs with the wheels attached.

Here is a close up of the chain with one of the pins almost removed.

Happy Creating!

Shapeshifting Toy Robots Part 2

June 5, 2025June 16, 2025 Lutin

Here are some of our old creations that we forgot to post about. These are some of our wooden shapeshifting robots, inspired by Transformers.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

Making these do not require a lot of materials. you just need six rubber bands, four lego car wheels, and a small piece of wood.

First, measure and cut two small pieces of wood to be the outside of the car and the legs. Measure and drill two holes that the lego wheels will fit securely in. Make sure that you leave enough space in between the holes for the wheels to fit.

Attach two of the wheels and cut the piece to the right size. Repeat to make another leg, making sure that the wheels on both legs align.

Next, cut two arms and drill small holes in the top that can fit a rubber band.

Cut a small body out of wood that

Now time for assembly!

Here is one robots in alt mode.

Both robots transformed

Front view.

Happy Creating!

Wooden Graduation Hat Charms

May 28, 2025June 16, 2025 Lutin

Graduation time is upon us and what better way to celebrate than creating something fun. For this year’s celebration we are making wooden graduation hat charms. This design is straightforward and suitable for all ages.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

This first step is lots of cutting. We cut the tops of the hats from thin sheets of plywood. Cut each square to is 3/4th of an inch on both sides.

The bottom of the hats were cut from square bars that we spoke shaved into a circle 1/2 inch wide.

After cutting and spoke shaving, sand the tops and sides as smooth as possible using different grades of sand paper. To make the charms smooth enough to look like a real cloth hat will require a repeated sanding.

After the tops are well sanded, start sanding the bottoms.

To align the tops with the bottoms while glueing, we drew cross on the bottom of the circles and the squares. Align the crosses to center the circles.

We used a flat black water based paint and applied two coats.

Here are some of the hats with the final coat.

Next, attach the eye-hole screws to the top. The eye-hole screws will let people hang the charm.

We recommend starting a hole for the eye-hole screw by using a small jewelry drill or very thin nail to make screwing the screws in easier. However, you can also screw them in without using a starter hole.

Take your time putting in the screws. If they break off they can be very hard to get out. Make extra hats and practice on scrap wood first. The main trick is to go slow and use as little force as possible.

The tassels are made from golden thread and are the hardest part. To make a tassel, first lay down a few strings then lay a long string on top of them in the middle. Tie the long string to the middle of them, which will be the string that the tassels hang on. Finally, tie a short string near the top of the bunch to separate the tassel into two parts. Tassels can be very hard to make, and you might need lots of practice.

Now just tie the tassel to the eye-hole screws and you are done! You can also add a keyring onto the graduation hats to make them into a keychain.

Happy Creating!

Wood Carvings: Rabbit

May 22, 2025May 10, 2025 Lutin

Our workshop is littered with dismantled robots, failed contractions, forgotten monsters and lots of little wood cravings. This is an older carving of a rabbit that we found in a dusty corner. Like with many of our creations, we do not have photos of how it was made but typically we first cut a rough shape out using a Japanese saw. Once we got the basic form we used wood carving tools to get the details right. And then lots and lots of sanding.

Carved toy Bunny

The design was minimalistic rabbit inspired by ancient totems. We realized to capture a rabbit all you need is the rabbit’s ears and tail. Carved toy Bunny

A close up of the tail.

Carved toy Bunny

We craved the ears flat because many of our earlier raving ended up with broken ears.

Carved toy Bunny

This was a very rewarding and simple project.

Happy creating!

Wood Sculpture: Cat

May 8, 2025May 8, 2025 Lutin

This cute little wooden cat was a quick build from some leftover pieces. We wanted a simple toy that would be sturdy and easy to build, but would also look like a cat. All of the wood was harvested from our yard.

Wooden toy cat

For the tail and legs we like to keep the bark on to give it a rustic look. The texture would also look like fur.

Wooden toy cat

The head, tail and legs are attached using wire to make it poseable. To do this, we drill small holes in each on the limbs, and used the wire like a peg. There is no glue in the whole figurine.

Happy Creating!

Girl Genius Dingbot Robot Part One

April 24, 2025April 28, 2025 Lutin

We decided to finally make an attempt to build a Dingbot robot based on the girl genius web comics.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

Our design is based on the first BingBot, a small robot similar to a pocket watch. Below is a image of a GirlGeniusOnline Dingbat in action.

As the series continue she create a variety of different BingBots and even Wingbots.

After we have settled on a design on paper we like laying out all the components on our workbench and start visualizing how the pieces fit together and to make sure we have all the parts we need.

We made the design as small as possible but still fit all the electronics including a RaspberryPi Nano. We wanted the design to be a fully functioning computer. The idea was when it is not running about it can be used to play music or video games.

The front and back to the robot are plywood circles that will serve as bases for all the electronics. To make sure the two sides align, we clamped two pieces of plywood together and used coping saw. To smooth out any irregularities, clamped them together again and sanded them repeatedly.

We used 2 inch bolts to separate the front and back plates. The is the smallest width that will still be able to hold all of our electronics. After repeated measuring, we drilled the holes while they were still clamped. This assured the bolts would align. Since the bolts are part of the atheistic of the robots it is important to get the positions correct.

We used three nuts and four washers per bolts to acts as spacers. To keep the bolts from loosing we used lock bolts (which can prove difficult to put on) and a pneumatic tubing in between the top and bottom bolts. We have used pneumatic tubing as spacers before in our robot designs and it works great even after years of use.

Once the two plates were secured we cut a strip of plastic to seal the gap. We thought using the side to access the components would be a unique and useful design. Normally, we prefer to have most of the electronics exposed but dingbot has a clean and elegant design. We recommend testing your layout of a sheet of paper first before cutting the holes in the plastic.

After a few trial and error we managed to secure the plastic strip. The first one broke so the second time we heated it with a blow dry to make it more flexible.

Down the center of the robots is a wooden dowel which will server as the spine for the robots. The legs and arms will both be anchor to the spine.

Here is a bottom view showing the spine.

We are not 100 percent happy with how the plastic strip pops out but we will try applying low heat again and try and mold it into shape.

Although you cannot see them, the design fits a RaspberryPi Nano, two motors, h-bridges, tons of wiring and a battery neatly.

Next step is to design the legs! We are leaning towards a toy robot inspired design.

Happy creating!

Our Apothecary Cabinet

April 17, 2025April 7, 2025 Lutin

As well as working with technology, the Hip Monsters team also works with magic. This is our handmade apothecary cabinet, which we use to store all of our apothecary supplies and extra bottles.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

The mortar and pestle is a very useful tool for making potions. It helps us grind up our herbs into smaller pieces to make smoother potions. Grinding up the ingredients will also help release more of the juices and flavors.

Here are some of our bottles. Whenever we get food in interesting jars, we keep the jars to store herbs and potions in. Many of our herbs are from our herb garden, including lavender, roses, and thyme.

We like to use a variety of different styles of jars to give the collection an organic feel. We also like to store some of our potions in paper packages that releases more of the smell. It also makes the apothecary cabinet look more interesting.

One of the most important additions to our apothecary cabinet was a wooden beam to go across the shelves. This makes sure that the jars won’t fall out very easily.

We used three different layers of stain to try and create a older look. After each layer of stain, we would sand the wood before adding the next one. Another technique to make wood look older is to use candle wax to create circles before adding the next layer of stain. The stain will not stick to the wax, which will make it look like there are stains from bottles on the wood.

For labels we used an unbleached present label then cut them to size. This helps us identify all of our different ingredients and also makes the bottles look more interesting.

Happy Creating!

Wand Making

April 3, 2025April 2, 2025 Lutin

At the beginning of the Covid pandemic, we wanted to create magic for ourselves and our friends and hone our wood crafting skills. After much debate, we settled on wand making.

Our yard in the San Francisco, CA has several trees and shrubs that require routine maintenance. Over the years, we carefully trimmed and stored the best branches for future use. One of our more numerous shrubs is boxwood and we have a large birch tree which both provide great material for wand making.

Please note, this material is provided for informational purposes only and is not a guide on how to create the designs. Please take a look at our disclaimer.

The three essential tools for wand making are:

Saw (we prefer a single-edge Japanese Pull Saw)
Vice mounted securely on a table
Spokeshave

Selecting the perfect branch can be hard and a lot depends on what sort of wand you are looking for. When selecting a branch to turn into a wand, make sure that it is not too green or too dry. Also, you want the branch’s width to be wider than you want at the start. Spokeshaving takes off more material than you would imagine. Straighter branches are easier, but we prefer ones that curve slightly to make the wand more interesting. Many pieces of wood also have natural handles that works great on the wand.

When cutting the wand make sure to not cut it too short, once you start crafting the ends you may find you need to trim it a bit more.

Wooden cut for making wands

Once you have trimmed the branch it is time to prepare it for spokeshaving.

To prepare for spokeshaving the wands, cure them in a mixture of water, dishwasher soap, and a little oil. Soak them for at least two days depending on how dry the wood was to begin with. If the wood is too dry it can by difficult to charge and split when spokeshaving. After two days of soaking, take the wands out of the solution, wipe them dry and store them in a cool dry place for at least one day to dry out. If your wood starts out very wet, you should not soak the wood and instead leave it to dry out for a bit.

Our technique for wand making involves lots of spokeshaving to shape the wand. The best thing about spokeshaving is it is great for all ages. Kids as young at six can spokeshave simple branches and adults can find it very rewarding after a long day at work.

When spokeshaving make sure not to cut into the wood. This can happen if the blade is not aligned correctly or your use too aggressive of an angle. If you do cut into the wood, we recommend not trying to smooth out the grove with the spokeshave. Instead, use a craving tool to widen the grove before returning to spokeshaving, or use a rasp to smooth it out. When spoke shaving it is best to use as little strength as possible and get into a rhythm to make the tooling as consistent as possible.

Once the wand is in the shape you want then move on to shaping the ends.

After years of practice we find repeated passes with a spokeshave can get the tip to the shape we prefer. You can use a carving knife as well, but with harder wood it can require a lot more force.

Sanding a wooden wand

After you get the shape and look you want move onto sanding. For wands sanding is really important. The wand needs a well-finished, smooth surface or it just will not feel right. Use multiple grades of sandpaper starting with the lowest grade sandpaper and ending with the finest.

Using wood stain on wands

Once the wand has the feel you want start applying the stain. Make sure to apply the stain in an open and well ventilated space. Remember, staining your wands will take multiple days, so you need a place where the wands will be safe and protected from rain or harsh sun. We stain our wands outside under our porch.

Above is a long line of wands after staining. Since it can take weeks to complete one wand we usually have several in the works at a given time. We also sand the wand after staining them because staining can make the wood feel rougher. Sanding can also give the wands an older look.

Waxing a wooden wand

After the last coat of stain has dried, apply beeswax to add another layer of protection and to give it a well-used feel. You want to wand to feel old and magical. This can require multiple coats of beeswax applied over several days depending on the condition of the wood.

Polishing the wands

The last step is to polish the wand using a rag or a bit of leather. We found leather does a great job getting a well-worn, ancient looking patina.

Now your wands are ready for use and harness the magic within!

Happy creating!