Telemetric Input device documentation

William Fowler

Does anyone have any good resources for building waldos? I'm new to animatronics and am very interested in learning more about waldos. Ever since that scene in "FX" where he controls the clown mech with the telemetric suit I've wanted to build one. Help a guy make a geek dream come true?

Bill

Christopher Vaughan

http://www.animatronicsinstitute.com/

Want to know about the waldo? Ask the guy who invented it.

Rick Does skype sessions for about $60. 

David Boccabella

I've been interested in making a Waldo for a while.. Just need to get a face mold (try doing that when there is no one to help you.. Dunk your head into a bucket of plaster?? )

Anyway - there is this Vid that you can get a lot of idea's from  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bFW2azvVEdI

However - you can see that they use linear resistors that can be a little stiff in their movements.

Recently I have found this  http://www.imagesco.com/sensors/stretch-sensor.html
its a length of rubber that varies it's resistance on being stretched. This means that you can have the sensors very close to the skin. It's strength is fairly low so it's easy to map facial movements with like lips, eyebrows, etc.

if you want to detect eye blinks then tat becomes a little more tricky.  A straight open/close you can use something like a IR reflection on the eye (harmless)
https://www.sparkfun.com/products/9453

But for something more advanced then you could go myoelectric to detect the movement of the eye muscles
http://dlnmh9ip6v2uc.cloudfront.net/datasheets/Sensors/Biometric/Muscle%20Sensor%20v3%20Users%20Manual.pdf

Although the Neurosky system looks fun it's very inaccurate.

To control things without it being seen as controlling things there are these idea's.
http://www.buildcoolstuff.com/tongue-twister/wordpress/

I made a simpler version using hall effect switched in the mouthguard and having a magnet on the tongue.

Hope this helps..
Dave

William Fowler

Thanks Christopher! I've been watching the "Organic Mechanics" course taught by Rick Lazzarini and am very happy to learn that I can skype with him for one on one instruction! At this point though I'm really new to animatronics so I'm gunna learn more basics before I put myself in front of a genius.

Thanks again,

Bill

William Fowler

Thanks David! I haven't been on in a while so sorry for the late thank you.

David Boccabella

Hi William.
I've been pushing n with my experiments but have had some technical holdups.
None of the holdups have been in the mouth interface, but more the powering and communication side.

I am also currently experimenting with EMG which is picking up the signals for the facial muscles using electrodes.  If this works then it be easy to do an almost one to one mapping of a face to a character's face. Raise eyebrows and character does same, snarl, wink etc.
Plus you can use other muscles to activate wings and special effects.

http://www.advancertechnologies.com/2013/04/tutorial-bionic-iron-man-armor.html

For my needs I will be looking at embedding the electrodes in a prosthesis so it will be easy to apply groups of electrodes at once.

Enjoy
Dave

William Fowler

Very cool stuff!