It’s been a while since my last animatronic project. I’ve gotten my lastest one ready in honor of both halloween and the 13th anniversary of Lynxmotion (I think I’m the first to mention it on the forum this year).
Here’s the youtube link: youtube.com/watch?v=6njpn1TLwm8
This robot, a modified Johnny 5, is named Cameron, based off the character from Terminator: Sarah Connor Chronicals show (who is named after the movie’s creator). It also implies it’s a show robot (Cameron <-> Camera).
This specific unit sports a head with a moving mouth, two color-changing LED eyes, and a head-tilt servo (the actual tilting servo is on it’s back.)
The show is run from VSA (Visual Show Automation software). The robot is powered by two wall transformers (the torso servos are very taxing on the power when they’re moving. The range has to be limited or the arm servos go limp, even on the current setup.) The whole thing is mounted on a cheap wooden board. Compared to the hour or two from my previous animatronic (the Lion King one), this one took weeks. There are still some things I’d like to tweak, but then I might not be done until election day. The mouth was programmed with a joystick, but the rest was all drawing boxes on the screen and setting servo position values. I could only program for a little at a time for fear of burning out the torso servos (already had to replace them once.)
Here’s some still pictures (sorry, I uploaded them, then relized they were all huge. Dial-up users beware):
The main body
The head, with the mouth open
The back of the head
The head tilting mechanism, based on the old Lynxmotion 2DOF leg push rod design
A sample from the Visual Show Automation file for this routine. Looks like something out of a 2D Metroid game.
