Mini Robotics project - Page 1
Forum section: electronics / projects

author: ForeverGeek
author_rank: Newbie
timestamp: April 25, 2015, 11:22:34 pm
content: Hey guys! (and girls..) Been loving watching Crazy Dave on Youtube with his videos and mailbags etcI just love the way he gets soooo excited when something retro or new concept comes along! heheOk, so Why am I posting? Well..I'm a HUGE cosplay fan and i'm currently working on a Starlord costume from Guardians of the Galaxy as well as a teenage Groot made from foamlatex to sit on my shoulder.I'm a bit of a tinkerer myself, and I got to thinking about how easy it would be to have Groot move on his own with some microServo's and maybe some code, just to do silly things like wave at people and sing, dance (or more like bop..), fart and be silly. I used to have (note the word used to here..) a Dave the Funky Shoulder Monkey which is basically a remote controlled very very basic 3 motor animatronic with a monkey teddy over the top of it. Having the idea to do something similar with Groot I thought "Sweet!! I can just flash and reprogram the chip in Dave and use the mechs!" Uh yeah... wrong.. I tore him apart carefully to make sure I could put him back together after only to find the main board was covered in snot and the chip was black-dotted surface mount with no logic pins anywhere in the circuit to even try and hack the firmwareSo, on to plan B.. I'd like to try and use some microServo's like you find in RC park flyers that are light and still strong enough to move maybe some blank circuit board cut to shape to use as armatures maybe? I've got the design and layout of the body sorted out on paper but it's the wiring and brains that i'm struggling with now and I'm asking for some help.The idea and basis is this:Groot needs to be semi self contained so he appears to all intents and purposes to be a little animatronic character with no umbilical chords going places.. I'd also like to try and make a remote of sorts using a simple RF transmitter like an EZ-Bee? or something so I can press a few buttons in my pocket and have him do something when I want him to like wave a certain direction or hi5 or dance like to the song in the film etc.. other than that he sorta sits there on my shoulder randomly looking around and waving and doing one of maybe 20 small random functions.One of the reasons behind the integral all in one unit of him is that I can detach him from my shoulder, was thinking neodemium magnets sewn into the shoulder pad and set into the foam latex... but then I can put him down on the edge of a table or something and he can sit there and still run. If the idea works, I was going to try and make the robotic OS/scripts all OpenSource so that people could add and develop further functions for their own robots, as well as making the armatures and possible servo header boards as kits for people to make their own Groots and/or other characters for Cosplay.I've never seen anything done like this other than like IronMan costumes with moving parts, or alien heads with opening mouths etc.. nothing that is kind of its own little cosplay in its own right.So, anyone here got any thoughts on how to keep the control board small yet have some RF or Wifi transmit/receive as well as all the power for the servos and logic boards that doesn't run out within 3 mins of turning on?Thanks guys, and Dave please point me to your address for your mailbag because I have a few things to send you that I think you'll appreciate-FG