drmoreau
Active Member
I'm a scifi writer, I write mostly retro-themed pulp science fiction, and as a way to start drawing more attention to my table at conventions I decided to start working on some props from my books.
I started messing with this little guy, he's called MI-3 (Maintenance Inspection #3). He's super simple. It's an outdoor faucet covering (Lowes/HomeDepot for $3). He's going to be mounted onto a cheap little $12 Radio Shack RC car frame that I've been having for years. There will be an eye-stalk with a glowing "eye", an assortment of little flashing LEDs, and a bluetooth speaker so I can remotely send sounds to him. Trying to keep the entire "shell" and electronics under 200 grams since the RC car's original body was a whopping 22 grams. I've tested the car with 400+ grams and it does move, just not fast. I definitely want to try and keep it under 300 grams for sure.
The housing alone is 62 grams but the rest of the electronics should weigh very little. The eye-stalk and the speaker are the only two things I'm worried about as far as weight. If the speaker is too heavy I will just rip apart another RC and use its four commands (up, down, left, right) to control some kind of on-board sound chip.
I started messing with this little guy, he's called MI-3 (Maintenance Inspection #3). He's super simple. It's an outdoor faucet covering (Lowes/HomeDepot for $3). He's going to be mounted onto a cheap little $12 Radio Shack RC car frame that I've been having for years. There will be an eye-stalk with a glowing "eye", an assortment of little flashing LEDs, and a bluetooth speaker so I can remotely send sounds to him. Trying to keep the entire "shell" and electronics under 200 grams since the RC car's original body was a whopping 22 grams. I've tested the car with 400+ grams and it does move, just not fast. I definitely want to try and keep it under 300 grams for sure.
The housing alone is 62 grams but the rest of the electronics should weigh very little. The eye-stalk and the speaker are the only two things I'm worried about as far as weight. If the speaker is too heavy I will just rip apart another RC and use its four commands (up, down, left, right) to control some kind of on-board sound chip.
