USB Hub Monster

Intro: USB Hub Monster

A six-legged creature with the ability to hook up to USB devices through any and all of its highly adjustable limbs.



Song: "Sgt. Pepper's Paradise (Beatles vs. Guns N' Roses)" by Jimmi Jammes

STEP 1: Gather Core Materials

- 7-port D-Link USB hub
- 7 one-foot USB extension cables
- 10-foot roll of 9-gauge armature wire
- black fabric (not shown)

STEP 2: Hook Up Six USB Cables

Easiest. Step. Ever.

STEP 3: Wiring It Up

Cut three three-foot pieces of armature wire, bundle them up, and twist them together in the middle. They should stay together and it doesn't matter if they can slightly move around or rattle. A bit of duct tape (the first of many) will take care of that when they're wrapped up.

STEP 4: Bend Pieces Back

From each end, find the longest piece of wire and bend it backwards. Now, at the middle of the duct-taped area, bend them out at a right angle. Repeat for the other side and you now have three pairs of legs.

Duct tape these new pieces down for good measure.

STEP 5: Attaching the USB

Bring together the USB squid from before and merge it with the armature wire. If you did this right, each bit of armature wire should be a little longer than its USB cable. Now duct tape them all together.

STEP 6: Pose-tastic

You should now be able to create all sorts of poses with this setup. Go ahead and take a break and have some fun with it.

STEP 7: Lucky Number Seven

That seventh port shouldn't go unused. With a USB extension cable, or any other spare USB cable, make some eyes.

Snip the cable to get to the tasty red and black wires inside. Solder a resistor to a couple of LEDs and HEY!, we have some lights.

STEP 8: Attach the Eyes

With that extra bit of armature wire left over, wrap it around the body a couple of times and then, with yet more duct tape, tape it down to the body and to the USB cable with the LEDs. You now have a neck and some floating eyes.

This is a good time to test the connections. Plugging in the USB cable to a computer should light up the eyes. Be sure to check the other ports with a spare flash drive, making sure your computer can see all of them.

STEP 9: Starting the Body

Measure the dimensions of the hub, including the margin that the USB cable sticks out of the top, and cut out two ovals out of some cardboard that can cover all of this.

STEP 10: Finishing the Body

Cut a couple of notched curves. Slide them together onto the ovals and it should make a nice connection. Forget to measure and simply eyeball it and you may have to force it a little bit of a lot like I did.

STEP 11: Make the Head

Get an egg carton and cut it up and fold it so you have a cardboard egg. Be sure to cut a hole for the neck.

STEP 12: Attach the Head

Cut a couple of holes in the head for the eyes and slide the LEDs in. Be sure to test again to see if they still light up.

STEP 13: Gentlemen, Start Your Glue Guns

If you thought there was a lot of duct tape before, get ready for a bigger amount of hot glue.

First, secure the eyes in the head by putting glops of glue behind them. Now get ready to add some skin.

STEP 14: Wrap the Legs and Neck

Cut up some black fabric into strips long enough to cover the legs and glue them on.

Straighten out the working leg and then run a line of glue all along one side. Holding the fabric tight, drop an edge onto the glue and then press down to secure it. Wrap the fabric around and glue down the other edge to secure it. I didn't worry about stray threads since they add to the insect appeal.

STEP 15: Cover the Head and Body

I cut out a piece of fabric and then poked a couple of holes for the eyes. Once this was glued down I glued a strip around the head. I repeated this with a couple of more strips for a segmented look.

For the body I used a similar technique, covering up the cardboard with random pieces of fabric and then layering strips with loose threads on top.

STEP 16: Enjoy Your USB Monster

The armature wire is easily bendible and surprisingly strong. You can do pretty much any pose you want, except for a headstand. You could probably make some stop-motion animation with it. Or you could just put it on your desk as an early Halloween decoration.

Comments

[zack247]

sweet!
i love it, i should totally make one of these...

[JavaNut13]

I'm not sure if fabric would be the best way of decorating it..
Maybe an evil-looking wire monster? Pipe cleaners? Eclipse mint cans?

[squawker]

Wait! So this doesn't do anything. Nothing at all. I thought it might be a robot or something. Oh well.

[AllergicToPain]

This really turned out cool and the stop-motion animation idea is great too! I might try something like this out.

[QwertyuioLP]

This just helped me with my Instructable. Thnxs alot!

[Lil Bastard]

Would it create too much heat if you bought a plush octopus and ran a USB connection to each of the tentacles? LOL

[Damage, Inc.]

Cthulu
This would be one better.

[maker12]

yummy burnt plush!:-) ps it will not catch fire :-(

[millyan]

too cool ! I'mmaking this as christmas gift fo my brothers

[firesketch]

sweet... it can be a pet for my monitor :3 and gotta add a usb sd port :D

[mr.peaches]

in step 9, it looks like you could make that into an Imperial Walker from Star Wars or something... that's a pretty neat project btw!

[fwjs28]

AT-AT.....hmmmmm.....*grabs usb cords*

[ngth]

It reminds me of the bots from The Matrix... oh no! They're taking over! :) Interesting use of an USB hub.

[Vertigo666]

that's what i first thought it was

[adamvan2000]

That was my first reaction to the pictures in step 5. I thought it looks a lot like one of the harvesters off of 'The Matrix'. Which gives me an idea.... ~adamvan2000

[Chicken2209]

yeah in step five they look like them but the final image i definitely see Star Wars Walkers

[mettaurlover]

post it...or i will come for you...and trust me...you don't want me to...

[dark sponge]

But what to do with all of those USB ports...

(goes to instrctables main page and types in "USB")

[JellyWoo]

cool, it was posted on www.geekologie.com today!

[mettaurlover]

is that good or bad?