It strolls around, moves its head back and forth and makes Star Wars sounds...
Apart from the motors and microcontroller, everything is made out of junk: Scrap, leftovers and dismantled parts. For example, the head is made of a Maraca (Rumba Shaker). The body was a water pipe in its previous life and the legs were tongue depressors (unused - I hope).
The brain is a PICAXE 08M, programmable via a socket at the back of the robot. Muscles are two cheap 9g servos and one gear motor (GM3).
What's left: 1. Install a cliff sensor (actually, it already has one: When it senses the end of the table it automatically falls down...) 2. Create/Find real R2D2 sounds for the PICAXE - Any pointers will be most welcome! 3. Recharge circuit for the batteries.
My suggestion is to add some leds on the head (just like the “real” one). As for the sounds, if you want to make even more complex ones you could go for and ISD chip (chips that record and playback a variety of sounds), that is if you have space of course.
Thumbs up for the driving mechanism, you don’t see that quite often. :=)
Scrap2-D2 Very cool! Very cool! I’ve been thinking about building a small R2D2 like this as well. VERY creative use of found/recycled materials. If we could still rate postings I would give you the full 5 stars for that alone! It appears the GM3 is mounted in the little base in the front? Inspiring post…
I tried to add LED, but it took too much juice, so not much left for the engines - too bad.
Regarding the ISD - I agree it would be cooler, but miss the whole concept of this robot, which is to see what can be done with minimal cost. Perhaps in the next project…
Reading replies like this makes all these sleepless hours almost worthwhile. This supporting environment is the reason I like LMR so much! - Thanks!!
Regarding the GM3: It is mounted beneath a servo inside the body and serves as a third leg. For aesthetic reasons I covered its visible part with the a base.
I don’t know if it’s needed, but if people will want to, I guess I could write a short construction walkthrough.
