iwould like to start working on building animatronics - wish to enroll for basic plan at $20 a month
i'm a college student (community college of allegheny county, in pittsburgh, pa) and a teacher (Scott C. Conner, who said he used to work for Stan Winston in 2004) at my school today & he referred me to you guys (the Stan Winston school). I'd like to work on building animatronics as soon as i can, including over the summer of 2022. I bought these 2 items on amazon.com
and this one
I'm thinking of modifying (adding robotic motion devices and a moving jaw, moving hands /w fingers, and makeup as well as my own costume that i've bought at a local thrift store (consisting of a man's dress slacks, & dress shirt, that would fit a tall man, slack's inseam is 35 inches, so pants is closest i could find that would fit a 7 ft tall animatronic) this 7 ft tall Johnny Punk i bought to create a 7 ft tall alien man (won't make it look scary, but a handsome, nice, helpful, polite alien man instead) who is a doctor (of medicine). This is what i wanted to create 20 years ago, as well as use other items sold on amazon such of these:
and
and modify these, too, same as with the 7 ft tall Johnny Punk item, so i could hopefully, join my school's drama or film club and put on shows so i could maybe start earning a little more pocket money, as well as skits (possibly for part of my home business) in my local area where i live).
I also have several animatronic baby dolls i bought from ebay, incl. a crawling animatronic baby i got on amazon in 2020. i'd like to learn how to modify them so i can possibly make them programmable and less scary looking (so they'd look cute, even if they're alien babies, as well as human babies) and look more real using stage special FX makeup to make them look less like a doll and more like a live person/baby, as well as move and maybe behave like real life babies, do, also, and these babies i'd use in either my skits or short films as well as this 7 ft tall Johnny Punk item, (as well as other animatronics i have in my amazon saved for later cart), since i have a hard time finding real people actors for some short movies i wanted to film (both last semester and this semester), so, i thought i'd create my own actors using animatronics that i'd build.
i did not know about animatronics until i talked to Scott Conner about it in 2020 at school.
so far, i'd like to use this Johnny Punk item to start putting on skits so i could start earning extra money as soon as i can, using skills i'll learn at San Winston school, since i'm on a small income (ssi) and my mom has control of my ssi money as of now. I want as many streams of revenue as i can get at this time, so i can start earning myself a better, bigger income, hence i'm actively attending community college of allegh county, both in spring, summer, & fall of 2022 to build skills.
these animatronic classes, i'll take in my spare time (4 classes a month, on demand). I do get paid every sunday. I can use this money to pay the $20 for my basic monthly courses at Stan Winston school online.
right now i'm going for the free 7 day trial.
only i cannot seem to find the animatronics classes here on this website, so where do i begin in my goal to learn to build animatronics here at Stan Winston school (and do this by chat and online)?
could you link me to the beginning of the animatronics courses?
thank you very much.
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Comments
Your plan to start by modifying some existing products is a great one. You can learn a lot by taking things apart and then adding your own features.
There has never been a better time to learn Animatronics. Microcontrollers like Arduino really lower the barrier to entry and give you a ton of power for very little cost. And for more complex projects you have small form factor computers like the Raspberry PI that can work in tandem with microcontroller and external boards to do some amazing things.
As a new student, I would suggest our Learning Pathways feature, which lets you tackle a core subject with a curated series of courses.
The Learning Pathway for "Mechanical & Animatronic FX" is here:
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/pathways/mechanical-animatronic-effects-online-courses-for-intermediate-to-advanced-animatronics-fx-mechanics
We also have other lessons that pair well with animatronics, like those focused on puppetry and cable-operated mechanisms.
I suggest browsing our entire course library to familiarize yourself with everything so you have an idea of what you might like to learn once you've completed the Learning Pathway.
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/tutorials
And we are always here to help with any questions!
/Chris
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/pathways/mechanical-effects-basics-online-courses-for-beginner-animatronic-fx-mechanics
Here is our full pathways section:
https://www.stanwinstonschool.com/pathways
You can see other pathways there like Fabrication that will also help you grow skills that animatronics may depend on.
/Chris