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Pet Dragon Breathes 8-Foot Fireballs!

This year's fifth annual Maker Faire featured a fully articulated, fire-breathing animatronic dragon named Saphira (after the dragon from the book Eragon).

Saphira was built by high school students Alex Jacobson and Sam DeRose of Marin, CA, with a little help from their perspective fathers (Mr. DeRose works for Pixar Animation). The project required several different techniques, such as "welding, oxy-acetylene cutting, pneumatics, flame effects, and the use of the Arduino microprocessor".

Check out the video below to see Saphira in action, and read a little more about their process here. MAKE also features a brief interview with the creators.

Flame shooting from a robotic device against a blue sky.

A young man and an adult collaborate on a robotics project in a workshop.

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