Schlagwort: animatronics

  • This frighteningly realistic animatronic head features expressive silicone skin

    This frighteningly realistic animatronic head features expressive silicone skin

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The human face is remarkably complex, with 43 different muscles contorting the skin in all kinds of ways. Some of that is utilitarian — your jaw muscles are good for chewing, after all. But a lot of it seems to be the result of evolution giving us fantastic non-verbal communication abilities. That isn’t an easy thing to replicate by artificial means, but Will Cogley managed to make this silicone-skinned animatronic head that is frighteningly realistic.

    Most people, when seeing this animatronic head, will feel something between unease and outright disgust or terror. Cogley purposefully exaggerated the movements and proportions to give the head a more cartoonish appearance in an attempt to navigate around the uncanny valley, but it still looks a bit too human to be comfortable. 

    That is largely the result of the realistic silicone skin that Cogley molded and then attached onto the internal skeleton (skull?) frame using magnets. That attachment method is pretty similar to the way our own people skin attaches to our muscles and tendons, and it produces expressions that are quite human.

    The internal skeleton was 3D-printed and actuated by a plethora of small servo motors. Cogley designed a custom shield PCB for an Arduino Mega 2560 to control the servos. He hasn’t yet programmed it beyond a handful of basic movements and facial expressions, but he’s set it up so that there is a great deal of potential for future programmatic upgrades.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWrldOS6xBw?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    Going forward, Cogley wants to experiment with some other molding techniques and so we may see an even more realistic version soon.

    The post This frighteningly realistic animatronic head features expressive silicone skin appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Giving Billy Bass the arti-fish-al intelligence he always deserved

    Giving Billy Bass the arti-fish-al intelligence he always deserved

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    If you were unlucky enough to visit a big box retail store or goofy uncle’s home around the turn of the century, you would have undoubtedly come across a Big Mouth Billy Bass. That’s an animatronic fish that wiggles on a plaque while older, very licensable hit songs play. But while ol’ Billy was wildly popular at the time and spawned a whole new market segment, he wasn’t very sophisticated. Tony–K decided to address those cognitive shortcomings by giving Billy Bass an ‘arti-fish-al intelligence’ upgrade.

    Internally, the original Big Mouth Billy Bass is quite simple. It has a single electric motor that drives the animatronic movement through a plastic mechanism, with a cheap sound chip that has Al Green’s “Take Me to the River” burned in. Tony–K’s modification gives the user fully control over everything, so they can program whatever behavior they like and use any audio. Using a standard infrared remote control, the user can activate those programmed sequences. If desired, Billy can be switched back to his normal routines.

    Tony–K achieved that using two Arduino UNO Rev3 boards. One handles motor control, while the other plays audio. Tony–K chose to do that so he could use a motor driver shield with one Arduino and an SD card shield with the other. This takes advantage of the TMRpcm library, which makes it possible to play PCM and WAV files without a dedicated audio DAC (digital-to-analog converter). The audio quality won’t be stellar, but it is good enough for this purpose.

    What to play all comes down to the builder’s ability to think up fish-related puns. If you can find a way to incorporate a Jimmy Buffett song, you’ll be golden!

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GZiCmUWH7Ko?start=2&feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post Giving Billy Bass the arti-fish-al intelligence he always deserved appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • This animatronic CatNap is predictably creepy

    This animatronic CatNap is predictably creepy

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    Poppy Playtime is an interesting horror video game — or rather, an episodic series of games — that puts players into the eerie toy factory of fictional company Playtime Co., where they find that the company’s characters are alive and quite aggressive. A big part of the game’s appeal is the creepy character design, with the eponymous Poppy being just one example. But they’re all scary, as Jaimie and Jay of the Wicked Makers proved when they built this life-sized CatNap animatronic.

    The Wicked Makers aren’t strangers to this game, as they previously built an eight-foot-tall Huggy Wuggy. Their CatNap animatronic isn’t quite as tall, but it is still huge. And it is a faithful recreation of the monster seen in-game. It can move its head side-to-side, and its body sort of sways like a real, breathing creature’s would. It even breathes glowing red fog to represent the in-game sleeping gas formulated for children.

    As usual, that vast majority of the work here went into constructing the animatronic’s skeleton, body, and head. It is a masterful mishmash of PVC pipe, wire, foam, clay, and fabric. But the real magic comes from the movement, which is possible thanks to the use of an Arduino UNO Rev3. That controls the torso’s wiper motor via a relay, the servo motor that moves the head, the LEDs for the eyes and smoke, and the smoke machine.

    To simplify the animations, the Wicked Makers turned to Bottango software. That’s free and made specifically for controlling animatronics. It makes programming and uploading animations easy, so the Wicked Makers can alter CatNap’s behavior whenever they want.

    The result is just as terrifying as it is impressive.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Fh6mimCibhQ?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post This animatronic CatNap is predictably creepy appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • A terrifying FNAF-style Mickey Mouse animatronic

    A terrifying FNAF-style Mickey Mouse animatronic

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    The copyright for Steamboat Willie famously expired at the beginning of this year. Steamboat Willie was the first appearance Mickey Mouse, so this copyright expiration is a big deal for Disney. Anyone will be able to use the character for the first time in history, as Mickey Mouse is now in the public domain. To celebrate this momentous occasion, Jaimie and Jay of the Wicked Makers YouTube channel built this terrifying FNAF-style Mickey Mouse animatronic.

    A few months ago, Wicked Makers built a Five Nights at Freddy’s Springtrap animatronic and the results were amazing. For this project, they took many of those same lessons, techniques, and stylistic decisions and applied them to Mickey.

    This is a full, life-saved head that can move, open and close its jaw, and direct its scary glowing gaze. The vast majority of the head’s structure is a 3D-printed shell (modeled by BeardlessProps) with a ridiculous amount of superb texturing, painting, and weathering. The ears, for example, have a coating of dark fiber that gives a felt-like appearance. The aesthetic does a fantastic job of making this look like an old and beaten animatronic from a theme park.

    The movement is all actuated by hobby servo motors controlled by an Arduino UNO R4 board. Wicked Makers added a USB host shield, which let them connect a PlayStation 4 controller. The Arduino reads the stick positions and button presses from the PS4 controller and adjusts the servo motors accordingly. That allows for nice organic control when puppeteering.

    This video ends with the animatronic dying. But from what we saw before that, it was very much a success. The Wicked Makers plan to repair the head and will post a video with updates, so be sure to subscribe to their channel.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1ZaJVcytjyQ?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

    The post A terrifying FNAF-style Mickey Mouse animatronic appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • Three September debuts on Project Hub, three top picks!

    Three September debuts on Project Hub, three top picks!

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    The Project Hub is where Arduino users share their achievements to inspire, help others, and maybe show off a little. With thousands of projects already uploaded, in categories that run the gamut from “flying things” to “smart lighting,” we are proud to celebrate this community-boosting initiative by selecting three highlights every month for a special mention and gift card to spend on our Store. 

    If you are new to the portal and think you’d never be picked, think again! All three top users from September stood out with the very first project they uploaded.

    3. Keep your energy levels in check

    This advanced project allows you to successfully build an Arduino-based power meter system with internal PLC, able to accurately collect and calculate data to monitor energy consumption, improve efficiency, and add value to home automation solutions. Follow the instructions to display voltage, power factor, current, power and frequency instantly, with a handful of commonly available components and a compact Arduino Nano. 

    2. Start your own band, with animatronics

    Syncing up different props – from different manufacturers and retailers – to create a cohesive overall installation is no easy feat! This project was specifically intended for Halloween, to get skeletal animatronics to play the same music together thanks to the UNO R3 and some ingenious wiring… but we think it would work great also with more festive characters, for a truly unforgettable holiday display. 

    1. Stop manually logging in and out of Windows

    A fan of Arduino since graduating with a dissertation on smart homes in 2022, kela910512 has successfully used an Arduino Micro to devise a secure tool to log in and out of Windows 10 using an RFID card. Instead of manually typing passwords, the solution leverages an Android application to send the user’s password to the Arduino via Bluetooth, with a range of additional security mechanisms. To find out more and perhaps try this yourself, head to Project Hub! 

    For your chance to be selected for a $100, $300 or even $500 gift card to spend on the Arduino Store, submit your best project on Project Hub! We will be awarding three new entries every month, as detailed in the complete terms and conditions. Good luck! 

    The post Three September debuts on Project Hub, three top picks! appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • TAST-E is an animatronic robot head with a sense of taste and smell

    TAST-E is an animatronic robot head with a sense of taste and smell

    Reading Time: 2 minutes

    There are many theories that attempt to explain the uncanny valley, which is a range of humanoid realness that is very disconcerting to people. When something looks almost human, we find it disturbing. That often applies to robots with faces — or robots that are faces, as is the case with the TAST-E robot that has a sense of taste and smell.

    The TAST-E robot created by M. Bindhammer looks a bit like a human face, sans skin. Servo motors let it pan and tilt, flap its lips, move its unsettlingly realistic eyeballs, and waggle its eyebrows. It can even speak thanks to a Parallax Emic 2 text-to-speech module connected to an Arduino Mega 2560 board.

    But TAST-E is most intriguing because of its sense of taste and smell, which let it identify specific compounds and molecules.

    Our own tongues can only detect five distinct tastes: saltiness, sweetness, bitterness, sourness, and umami (savoriness). TAST-E can do the same by recognizing the compounds that stimulate those receptors on our tongues. It does so with colorimeters, which detect the color produced when certain reagents mix with those compounds. This is similar to how a woman might look for a blue or pink line on a pregnancy test. TASTE-E has custom colorimeters that look for the reagent colors associated with those taste compounds.

    TASTE-E’s sense of smell is a bit more straightforward, but also less analogous to human smell. Its electronic nose uses a Grove gas sensor breakout with four modules: a GM-102B for NO2, a GM-302B for ethanol, a GM-502B for VOCs, and a GM-702B for CO/H2. Those let it analyze the concentration of those compounds in an air sample.

    It isn’t clear what M. Bindhammer intends for TAST-E, but this robot is as impressive as it is chilling.

    The post TAST-E is an animatronic robot head with a sense of taste and smell appeared first on Arduino Blog.

    Website: LINK

  • This mouth mechanism is controlled by your typing

    This mouth mechanism is controlled by your typing

    Reading Time: < 1 minute

    This mouth mechanism is controlled by your typing

    Arduino Team — April 21st, 2020

    Will Cogley, known for his awesome animatronics, has created a robotic mouth that’s already a work of art and could form the basis of something even more amazing. 

    The device features an array of servo mechanisms to actuate its jaw, forceps, cheeks, and a tongue. The cheek assemblies are particularly interesting, employing two servos each and a linkage system that allows it to move in a variety of positions.

    For control, the project uses a Python program to break typed sentences up into individual sounds. It then sends these to an Arduino, which poses the mouth in sequence. Cogley has also experimented with microphone input and hopes to explore motion capture with it in the future.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mEAz-72ZjKE?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK

  • Designing an extremely realistic animatronic heart with Arduino

    Designing an extremely realistic animatronic heart with Arduino

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    Designing an extremely realistic animatronic heart with Arduino

    Arduino Team — January 17th, 2020

    In his latest video, Will Cogley has created an animatronic heart so realistic that you might wonder if it’s the actual thing. 

    The device is made out of molded silicon with fake blood poured on top to enhance the effect, and inside a trio of servo motors push the lower and upper sections of the prop out in a very lifelike pattern. 

    Control is via an Arduino Micro along with an I2C servo controller, while power is provided by an external tether. A potentiometer on the back is used to vary heartbeat speed. 

    He also made a simpler — and less potentially terrifying — version with a cloth exterior. This one is battery-operated and runs on a motor and linkage system, perhaps making it good for a nice portable joke!

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8-jlu4yoHm0?start=517&feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK

  • Build your own animatronic GLaDOS

    Build your own animatronic GLaDOS

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    It’s 11 years since Steam’s Orange Box came out, which is probably making you feel really elderly. Portal was the highlight of the game bundle for me — cue giant argument in the comments — and it still holds up brilliantly. It’s even in the Museum of Modern Art’s collection; there’s nothing that quite says you’re part of the establishment like being in a museum. Cough.

    I bought an inflatable Portal turret to add to the decor in Raspberry Pi’s first office (I’m still not sure why; I just thought it was a good idea at the time, like the real-life Minecraft sword). Objects and sounds from the game have embedded themselves in pop culture; there’s a companion cube paperweight somewhere in my desk at home, and I bet you’ve encountered a cake that looks like this sometime in the last 11 years or so.

    A lie

    But turrets, cakes, and companion cubes pale into viral insignificance next to the game’s outstanding antagonist, GLaDOS, a psychopathic AI system who just happens to be my favourite video game bad guy of all time. So I was extremely excited to see Element14’s DJ Harrigan make an animatronic GLaDOS, powered, of course, by a Raspberry Pi.

    Animitronic GLaDOS Head with Raspberry Pi

    The Portal franchise is one of the most engaging puzzle games of the last decade and beyond the mind-bending physics, is also known for its charming A.I. antagonist: G.L.a.D.O.S. Join DJ on his journey to build yet more robotic characters from pop culture as he “brings her to life” with a Raspberry Pi and sure dooms us all.

    Want to make your own? You’ll find everything you need here. I’ve been trying awfully hard not to end this post on a total cliche, but I’m failing hard: this was a triumph.

    Website: LINK

  • Wheatley from Portal 2 comes to life with Arduino

    Wheatley from Portal 2 comes to life with Arduino

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    Wheatley from Portal 2 comes to life with Arduino

    Arduino Team — August 27th, 2018

    If you’re a fan of Portal games, you’d probably like nothing more than to have your own Wheatley Personality Core to accompany you on real-life adventures. While that would be a passing thought for most, Luke Albertson has created his own amazing replica of the Portal 2 character. 

    The device not only can say over 40 phrases from the game via an Adafruit soundboard, but contains a glowing blue eyeball that can pan, tilt, twist, and blink to help express what it’s thinking. It even has handles that move up and down, adding a kind of “flailing arms” effect to convey its emotions. 

    Albertson’s animatronic project is controlled by an Arduino Uno, along with a Bluetooth shield and PS3 controller for user interface. It’s shown off quite nicely in the video below, and more info and clips are available here.

    [youtube https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6__rQSXZcFM?feature=oembed&w=500&h=281]

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    Website: LINK