Animatronics tutorial- DONE!

[Honus]

Well at least it's done for now until I think of more stuff to add. :lol

Here you go-
Arduino animatronics- make your awesome costumes more awesome!

Jerome

 

[ShackMan]

Wow, nothing like a little light reading.

Seriously though, thanks for posting this. I've got some experience with PIC micros, and have thought about trying something else ... may have to give one of these a try.


ATM
ShackMan

 

[Alan Cross]

Thanks, Jerome! Impressive stuff!

 

[TomL]

Fantastic! Thank you very much! I'm just getting into costuming, but have used some Atmel chips in a previous life at work and even wrote my own bootloader...it's funny how things come full circle, it will be fun to dust off the cobwebs on the programming side of things.

I'm thinking of using a lot of accelerometers and/or bend sensors to simply trigger sound effects for joint motions. Probably way overkill, but I thought it would be cool. Any thoughts on how to do that cost effectively? I can't imagine using a processor and wave shield for each joint...maybe gutting some cheap recordable audio Hallmark cards will work.

 

[kwalsh0000]

Great stuff! Thanks for posting it up for us all, your animatronic stuff is always top notch

 

[phaeren86]

Thanks for the post, look forward to going through it.

 

[Baron]

wow...great writeup. Thanks for putting this up. guys like you really help the community grow by sharing your methods.

 

[Pilot]

Honus, have I mentioned that I love to hate you? :lol

This is fantastic, thank you SO much for putting it together. I've wanted to learn to use some sort of microprocessor and figure this exact sort of thing out for a long time, and here you've got it all wrapped up in one awesome tutorial. Can't say "thanks" enough!

 

[Honus]

I'm thinking of using a lot of accelerometers and/or bend sensors to simply trigger sound effects for joint motions. Probably way overkill, but I thought it would be cool. Any thoughts on how to do that cost effectively? I can't imagine using a processor and wave shield for each joint...maybe gutting some cheap recordable audio Hallmark cards will work.

Thanks for the kind words everyone! Hopefully some of you will be able to make use of the info and make some really cool stuff.

All you would need is one Wave shield as it can hold up to six different sounds, each triggered by a different input. The way I use it the Wave shield triggers a sound whenever you ground one of its six analog input pins but I'm pretty sure you could set up either accelerometers or bend sensors to have a threshold (like I have with the Iron Man repulsor) and then have it play a sound as soon as you reach that threshold. So throw a fist and it plays a sound (accelerometer) or bend your elbow or your finger and it plays a sound (bend sensor.)

Jerome

 

[Finnlock]

Wow, thank you for this, you're awesome!

 

[TK-Lee]

Not had a chance to read/look throught it yet but always nice to have more info on animatronics,, thanks for shareing

 

[TomL]

Thanks...I think I want to do multiple sounds simultaneously, and the Wave shield can't do that from what I've read. Again, I'm probably getting carried away with something that isn't practical, but I was thinking along the lines of small speakers at each major joint, each playing a servo / gearbox whirring sound as the joints move or a metallic clunk sound as the boots contact to the ground while walking.

I was also wondering if it was possible to, instead of thresholding a bend sensor at a specific value, to instead threshold on the rate of change of the value. So, an elbow whirring sound would start when the bend sensor started seeing some new, thresholded rate of change (regardless of the absolute starting value) and the sound would be cut short when that rate of change fell below some other value ( joint motion stopped).

I'm getting a bit too carried away with this, right?

 

[EyeintheSky]

Honus, what about your project of using something similar for a Horus or Anubis helmet?

 

[ShackMan]

Tom,

I'm not familiar with the WavShield itself, but in general application it what you want should be doable. If the WavShield (or some other device if you had to choose another) had a level trigger instead of a edge trigger, it'd be fairly simple.

What I mean is (again, I don't know how the WavShield triggers) if the sound device has a trigger/input pin that plays a sound when that pin was high or low, then all you'd have to do is set the pin to the trigger state at the first threshold, have the micro continue reading the bend sensor until it hits the other threshold, then change the state of that pin again (high or low, whichever is off). If the sound device is edge triggered, meaning it plays as soon as the input pin switches from high to low or vice versa, then you're not quite so lucky.


ATM
ShackMan

 

[hollywoodhardware]

Thanks for sharing Jerome!!!

 

[Honus]

Thanks...I think I want to do multiple sounds simultaneously, and the Wave shield can't do that from what I've read. Again, I'm probably getting carried away with something that isn't practical, but I was thinking along the lines of small speakers at each major joint, each playing a servo / gearbox whirring sound as the joints move or a metallic clunk sound as the boots contact to the ground while walking.

I was also wondering if it was possible to, instead of thresholding a bend sensor at a specific value, to instead threshold on the rate of change of the value. So, an elbow whirring sound would start when the bend sensor started seeing some new, thresholded rate of change (regardless of the absolute starting value) and the sound would be cut short when that rate of change fell below some other value ( joint motion stopped).

I'm getting a bit too carried away with this, right?

Ahhh... I see now what you want to do. No- the Wave Shield cannot do that. It can only play one sound at a time. The only thing it can do is cut off one sound and start playing another or play one sound all the way through and then play the next sound.

I'm pretty sure you could threshold a bend sensor (or accelerometer) rate of change so you could trigger different sounds depending on the output value of the sensor.

To possibly make it easier let's say you want sound effects for an Iron Man Mk I costume. The way I would do it is have an accelerometer on your leg that would trigger an "overall" clanking, whirring sound so whenever you walked you would get this overall mechanical sound. Then I'd put a bend sensor on each elbow that would trigger an arm sound for each arm- but only play the sound if there wasn't any walking involved. You could also have a peizo (knock) sensor on each foot that would trigger a clank sound- but only if the foot hit hit the ground with a specific amount of force. Maybe something like that?

 

[Honus]

Honus, what about your project of using something similar for a Horus or Anubis helmet?

That's one of my upcoming builds using this controller. I haven't yet decided exactly how I want to control it. I may end up putting a XBee radio in the jewel in the hand device so there aren't any arm wires. The other method would involve a head mounted accelerometer but I don't want the Horus head base moving around so much- I just want the top of the head to move.

 

[Honus]

Thanks for sharing Jerome!!!

Glad you like it! I'll try to get a new and improved wiring schematic to you late tonight.

 

[Dave Porter]

Yes, many thanks.

I have been looking at Arduinos, and this gave me the push to try some.

 

[typewriter]

Thank you so much man, you made my life 1000 times easier