Hack a Day is running a cool contest where you need to hack apart any dancing santa you can find and create a cool walking santa project.
“The challenge:
Acquire a dancing Santa. We don’t care which one it is, how much you spend, how big it is etc. We know there are tons of models out there ranging from dancing Christmas [Homer Simpson] to giant life sized Santa. It might be a good idea to do some patent searches first to figure out what is inside. Here’s an example of what you can find (pdf).
Tear the Santa apart and use the pieces to build a multi legged walking thing. There are tons of ways to pull this off. Try to use only the pieces that came from the Santa. You may add tape/glue and solder (as well as batteries). We realize that you may absolutely have to add some stuff to get your plan working. Please document exactly what you added as this will be one of the judging points.
Photograph and document the entire process and submit it to us by November 30th.”