Geischt

Let's Make Robots Robots
1

One day my boy came to me and stated that his cardboard monster should scare
his little brother. He specified that the robot shall appear when someone makes
noise and dissapear when it is quite.

Aldough I did not like the "scare the little brother" part of his motivation I sat down
with him to outline this new robot a bit more.

Actually I wanted to compete in this challenge so I got myself into this making and
supported the kid and his creativity.

A few minutes later we had a prototype that showed the basic principle of this ghost.

500×500
 

After a bit more elaboration and prototyping there arise this map that showed where
eyes, mouth and eyebrows are placed and how far the distances from the
nice to the bad face were.

500×500

So this results got transfered to a A4 paper sheet and became the measurement
base of this ghost robot. 

500×500

After a lot of cutting and exploring this ghost started to look like one. Playing around
with it using light and no-light this shadow play got visible. The ghosts face got very
fuzzy. Kind of uncertainity about the outlines. This fuzzy effect was 100% ghosty.  

Shadow. That is it. Fuzzy outlines. Not clear where the body starts and where it ends.

Shadow is all we need here to get the effect. Nice finding. Great ghost-look. 

500×500

An old trashed music box that almost landed in the garbage got reused as the cave
of the ghost. 

500×500

Inside the box there is enough space to insert the cardboard layers, the light
and the other electronics. The two mini makers helped a bit...

500×500

After some weeks we continued this build and added some lights. Using a transistor
and Arduino to switch on/off. 

500×500

Our table got turned into a robot lab again... and my mini maker experimented with 
lights and DC motors while I soldered the LEDs. 

500×500

Unfortunately the shadow effect got lost a bit. In the picture below the upper image
shows the mouth without paper cover. Clear and only a bit fuzzy outlines.
The image below shows the mouth covered with a white sheet of paper. The teeth
are almost not visible. So further testing needs to be done. 

500×500

Well then... more elaboration and electronics are next.

 

Scare the Little Brother

  • Actuators / output devices: micro servo
  • Control method: autonomous
  • CPU: Arduino
  • Power source: Wall adaptor
  • Programming language: C
  • Target environment: indoor, bedroom
This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://community.robotshop.com/robots/show/geischt
2

Looking Awesome,

as usual :stuck_out_tongue:

3

:slight_smile:

Thank you dear Francisco.

4

how cute is that :slight_smile:

father and some robot making…very awesome Nils :slight_smile:

5

just a quick question so I

just a quick question so I have an idea of what’s possible for young kids: how old are your kids?

6

It depends…

With younger kids like my elder one (he is 5 now) it is possible to work on mechanics like cardboard-robots. Cardboard can be cut with japan-knife and scissors, can be painted with water-color. All kids material. 

The electronics are breadboarded. But he had focused for hours to get this nifty fine-motoric hand-movements done. Like insert a LED into the breadboard. Sometimes I thought he must give up. But he didn’t. And now he can breadboard what I draw him on a sheet of paper.

The youger one is almost two. He can create a great mess with everything that comes into his path. But he is extremly interested in the builds. He is a big fan of the Bøsewicht. This monster robot glows every night in his bedroom. And he is still scared a bit. But loves it too.

After all these boys are a bit young for robotics. But old enough to get inspired about making. To me this is all what counts.