Make: Volume 90 — Animatronic Scares is a Fall 2024 themed issue built around practical creature movement for Halloween props, films, live shows, and maker projects. Make: advertises more than 33 projects and features, including a haunted deer, music-synchronized 3D-printed ghosts, mechanical eyes, and a breathing mechanism. It is best treated as an animatronics-led project sampler and reference issue—not a single, end-to-end robotics course.
Quick verdict
- Best for: Halloween builders, prop and effects artists, makerspaces, educators, and intermediate hobbyists exploring servos, mechanisms, fabrication, and control.
- Most relevant projects: Terrifying Taxidermy, Animatronic Singing Spooks, Simple Animatronic Eyes, and The Breath of Life.
- Limitations: The public contents page does not provide a complete bill of materials, difficulty matrix, wiring diagrams, source files, or current hardware/software compatibility for every project.
- Buying choice: Buy the issue for these specific projects; subscribe if you want continuing quarterly issues and, on applicable tiers, archive access.
What Volume 90 contains
The official issue page presents four articles in its “Animatronica” section, surrounded by broader maker coverage. The issue is identified by library catalog records as Make: Volume 90, Fall 2024. In the magazine archive it sits between Volume 89, Retro Tech, and Volume 91, Core Strength (archive).
| # | Preview | Product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Make: Volume 90 | $14.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 2 |
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Cheri Adult Magazine May 1978 Volume 2 #10 | $28.37 | Buy on Amazon |
| 3 |
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Gallery Adult Magazine May 1988 Volume 16 #5 | $19.95 | Buy on Amazon |
| 4 |
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Soap Craft Magazine: Volume 1 : Issue 1 | $4.99 | Buy on Amazon |
| 5 |
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Fresh & Sweet Adult Magazine volume 13 # 5 | $17.92 | Buy on Amazon |
The four animatronics projects
Terrifying Taxidermy — Jesse Velez, p. 36
This flagship creature-effects feature creates a haunted animatronic deer head for a horror-themed bar, with the issue description referencing Evil Dead. It is the strongest match for a haunted-house installation or cinematic creature prop. Expect a blend of sculptural body work, structural fabrication, moving mechanisms, electronics, and final cosmetic finishing. The landing page does not establish whether it is a fully reproducible build or primarily a case study, nor does it specify axes of motion, actuators, controller, power system, patterns, or source files. Treat it as inspiration until you have checked the article’s actual plans and parts list.
Animatronic Singing Spooks — Evan McMahon, p. 44
Glow-in-the-dark 3D-printed ghosts move to music using Bottango, which Make: describes as free animatronic software. This appears to be the most approachable entry point for a compact, repeatable Halloween display, although “approachable” is not the same as guaranteed beginner-level. You will need to confirm the article’s printer assumptions, ghost files, controller and servo choices, operating-system support, and whether a computer must remain connected during playback. Adapting the choreography to multiple ghosts, new music, or battery operation will depend on those details.
#1 Best Overall
Simple Animatronic Eyes — Will Cogley, p. 54
This mechanism is designed for lifelike eye movement, with joystick control or integration into an automated project; Cogley’s animatronic eyes are also identified as the cover subject. Before building, verify the available degrees of freedom—pan, tilt, eyelids, pupils, or a combination—the actuator and linkage arrangement, joystick interface, fabrication tolerances, eye-size limits, backlash, torque, and noise. The practical question is whether the mechanism can fit inside your mask, puppet, creature head, or humanoid prop without sacrificing service access.
The Breath of Life — Katherine “Smalls” Connell, p. 58
This article uses subtle periodic motion to make a stationary creature appear alive. Breathing is a visual illusion rather than a claim of biological accuracy, and its value is often in restraint: a slow, irregular rise and fall can sell a character when larger movements would look mechanical. The issue page does not identify whether the mechanism uses a bellows, bladder, flexible shell, fan, servo linkage, or linear actuator, so check the article before choosing materials. Also look for limits on travel, skin fatigue, motor stall, heat, and attachment strength.
The rest of the issue
Volume 90 is broader than animatronics. Features include Sepia Lux, the Illuminated Cuttlefish (Dale Dougherty, p. 12), DIY Geoengineering (Luke Iseman, p. 20), Tornado Tech (Cabe Atwell, p. 25), and Small Scale Solar Power (Kris de Decker, p. 26). The project section covers projection mapping; electromagnetic sound; a solar plant rotator; the Mirrordome; a smart plant; a DIY tortilla press; cubicle guardians; building a PC; and a talking zombie doll maker. Skill and closing sections address ChatGPT-assisted design, perspective correction, a toolbox, and Anouk Wipprecht’s technology-fashion work. The geoengineering feature should not be treated as deployment guidance: sulfur-dioxide balloon concepts raise serious legal, environmental, and safety issues.
Who should buy it?
Beginners may find the compact ghost, eye, or breathing concepts motivating, but the issue does not rate every project or list uniform prerequisites. Intermediate makers with experience in servos, 3D printing, linkages, soldering, and basic control systems will get the most practical value. Prop artists and event designers can mine it for mechanisms and presentation ideas, while educators and makerspaces can use the range of electronics, fabrication, projection, and design topics for demonstrations. It is not a substitute for a complete electronics primer, professional animatronics engineering reference, or safety-certified public-installation design.
Equipment and preparation
The landing page has no consolidated materials list. Across the animatronics articles, readers should be prepared to investigate the need for:
- Servos, horns, linkages, brackets, bearings, shafts, fasteners, and suitable structural supports.
- A microcontroller or servo controller, input devices such as joysticks or potentiometers, and an appropriate DC supply or battery.
- A 3D printer and filament for the ghost project, plus a computer for Bottango or other control software.
- Foam, fabric, latex, plastic, wood, sculpting compounds, or other skin and body materials.
- Soldering and hand tools, cable management, strain relief, fuses, guards, and an accessible emergency cutoff.
Do not assume a particular board, voltage, servo model, filament, operating system, or software version until the individual article or current first-party documentation confirms it.
Rank #4
Common failure points and safety
- Recalculate servo torque after adding foam, skin, fabric, or a heavy head; startup and stall current can reset controllers or overload USB/regulator power.
- Align pivots carefully. Binding, backlash, noisy gearboxes, and flexible skins snagging on linkages quickly make eyes and jaws look unnatural.
- Protect moving parts from fingers and provide a clearly reachable power cutoff. Enclose and fuse high-current supplies and batteries.
- For outdoor or public installations, add weather protection, appropriate ground-fault protection, guards, strain relief, and a tested shutdown procedure.
- “Free software” does not guarantee every operating system, controller, feature, or future update will work. Music synchronization can also drift when audio and motion use separate clocks.
Buy the issue or subscribe?
A single back issue is the sensible choice if you specifically want Volume 90’s animatronics projects and a fixed workshop reference. Make: directs readers to Maker Shed’s books and magazines collection, but individual Volume 90 availability and price were not verified.
The official subscription page says the magazine is quarterly. A U.S. offer block observed on August 18, 2026 displayed $24.99/year print, $29.99/year digital, and $49.99/year premium; other blocks showed different amounts. Treat these as promotional, location- and checkout-dependent prices, not permanent rates. The page describes four annual issues, with archive access and combined print/digital benefits varying by tier, and says subscriptions renew automatically unless canceled.
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Best Value
- Digital: best for searchable reading and archive use.
- Print: best for paper plans at a workbench, in a classroom, or in a makerspace.
- Premium: best for frequent readers who want both formats and the stated archive benefits.
Make: also discloses that it may earn affiliate commissions from purchases made through links on its site.
Final assessment
Volume 90 is worth considering if your goal is to build or understand theatrical, creature, and Halloween motion. Its standout value is the variety: a large haunted deer, small musical ghosts, expressive eyes, and breathing can lead to very different project paths. Choose another resource if you need one complete curriculum, guaranteed current compatibility, tested bills of materials for every build, or engineering guidance for a safety-critical public installation.
Quick Recap
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