Johnny 5 - 'Short Circuit' animatronic 'Hero' robot - Dream commission!

I’ve just been given a pair of Futaba T10CG’s…they are fantastic transmitters, and have replaced my old, and somewhat battered units :smile:

I sure hope you can get your photos back and that they have come to no harm. It amazes me the talent we are seeing on this forum.
I have a good friend that does investment castings. Here is a link to his forum.

http://www.unionsteammodels.co.uk/cgi-bin/yabb/YaBB.pl

He lives there in England so if you need good quality castings he may be a good source for you.

Dave
Ariel, WA

Hi Dave,

I sure hope so too!!! Sadly she took everything…my son, my dog, my house, my car…I’m well over it all now, it was nearly 6 years ago, but she still enjoys the fact that she kept hold of a lot of my stuff…unfortunately…I can’t PROVE that she has my property!!

If all of the immensely talented people within the Inventables community started a company…it would be one of the most amazing, innovative, and creative companies on the planet!!!

Superb!!! I’ve put Union Steam Models in my contacts book!!!

All the very best

Dave

Oh my word!!! What a stunning model!!! …I have no doubt that you will Angus!!! Looks like it might be a bit of a hand full to fly!!!

Me Too!! Me Too!!

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My kids said awesome.

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Hi Charles, :slight_smile: so did mine!!!

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What types of boards do you use for the controllers - Arduino or something more specialized?

I loved Short Circuit, recently showed it to my 10 year old son, had him crying near the end for a while.

Hi Dave,

Are you going to make it out of aluminium or some other material?

In any case it’s a super cool project :smile:

Hi Steve,

That’s a very good question!!! I’m going to be using a combination of radio control, and pre-programmed Arduino scripts.
I might even create an iOS app to control him…if I have time that is!!!

I’ve just found out that my client would like him to be ready for ‘WonderCon’ on March 25 2016!!!.
As ‘J5’ is an extremely complex build, this might not be possible!!..watch this space :smile:

Effectively… 3 months to complete such a complex build is a crazy deadline :smile:

Our children love ‘Short Circuit’ too!!!..hardly surprising really…they’ve been around robots, and animatronics since birth :slight_smile:

All the best

Dave

Hi Andrea,

All of the internals are going to be machined from aluminium, and steel. The tracks will be made from steel, and rubber, and all of the outer covers, and head casing will be made out of GRP.

I’m going to have to create wooden patterns for the head casing, and exterior panels/covers. I then need to make silicone moulds & then create the final hero casings in GRP…I did look at vacuum forming, as this might work for some parts.

Thank you so much

Dave

Great idea Angus!!! I was also thinking about going the ‘Waldo’ route…lol, ‘unlimited budget’…now that would be nice :smile:
I’m going to play it by ear :smile:

You probably already know this, but it’s quite common to use a high level controller like a Raspberry Pi to handle high level control, sound, and communications, and Arduino for the realtime stuff (reading timing pulses from the radio receiver or outputting servo pulses. If you need lots of LEDs hanging from just one I/O pin you could RGB NeoPixels which daisy chain. Another option is ESP8266 devices which are like Arduino (and can be programmed from the Arduino environment), but they have built in wifi and are cheap.

Please post lots of details, this is a cool project of a lifetime.

Hi Steve,

Fantastic!!! You know your stuff!!!

Sounds, lights, head & eye movement, etc are going to be controlled by the Arduino, as are the arms, (with the option to override). Drive will be fully radio controlled…for safety reasons!!!

I’m intending to post lots of pics, files & videos :smile:

Coming from studying how to build a 3D printer, quadcopter, and now a CNC I’ve become familiar with how similar all of these are (all Arduino based), plus I’ve spent some time learning Arduino and banging my head with ESP8266 modules. But what I don’t have yet is practical experience doing something like what you’re doing.

Well Steve, that’s where I come in :slight_smile: I want to share the knowledge I’ve gained over the last 25+ years in the film, TV, & music industries…A wise man once said…“In vain have you acquired knowledge
if you have not imparted it to others”.

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While doing a little research on this topic, found this site that has a lot of information; Input-Inc | Robotics Group. Under the download section, they have a copy of the original prop manual! There are even some great audio quotes.

[Johnny 5 Hi Piece of cake ][1]
[1]: http://www.input-inc.com/Voice/HiPeiceofCake.mp3

Hi there,

Thank you so much for the links!!!

I’ve downloaded everything :)…loved the sound clip by the way :wink:

Dave,

Are you going to machine the aluminium with the x-carve? If yes that would be really interest to know how (the settings and end mills) and how long is going to take to shape the aluminium with the x-carve :slight_smile:

Thank you very much

Andrea