Updated Animatronic Wolf Head.

David BoccabellaDavid Boccabella Moderator
edited May 2017 in Animatronics
Hi Folks.
I've been a little quiet of late and there is a good reason. I have been rebuilding my wolf costume and putting animatronics into him. As some of my friends who are on here were also going to the convention I was debuting him at I have not put any pictures up at all.
However his showing was a great success and I can now show you.


Here is the side of his head with the coverings pulled back. This was done as part of a show and tell at the end of the convention.

He has 11 Servo's in him.. 
2 for the ears to make them perk up of droop.
1 to lift the back of a mouth as in a smile
2 to raise and lower the eyebrows
2 x lip lift/snarl servo's
1 x upper front lift  to simulate talking
1 x nose twitch to simulate sniffing/breathing
1 x tongue lift/twitch to simulate talking
1 x bottom lip twitch to simulate talking.

He also has LED's behind the eyes to simulate blinking

Here is a close up of the muzzle area



Yes - I used the dread hot glue to help mount things...

He is controlled by an Adafruit PWM 16 channel servo controller and an Arduino Nano. The Nano will be replaced by a Teensy 3.2 as it is more powerful and faster.

The code driving him is custom and based on a multitasking loop driven by events and milliseconds. I will share this very soon.

At the moment his actions are driven by a push button hand control. However  he will soon be controlled entirely by the wearer.

His eyes will respond to the wearer's blinks/winks by using the reflectivity from the wearer's eyes.  This will be done by an IR led and detector.

The speech simulation will use a microphone in the mouth to gauge the intensity of the sound and so lift/lower the lips and tongue in approximation of talking.

The eyebrows, smile, and lip lifts for snarling will likewise be driven by the wearer.

There are lots more pictures on my website.. too many to put here.
But they cover from the bare shell of the skull to completion.

http://www.marcwolf.org/gallery/default.aspx?aid=111

Enjoy and comments/questions greatly appreciated.

Likewise I am forever in debt to the talented and inspirational people on this forum and in the teaching videos. I could not have done this without you all.

Dave
Post edited by David Boccabella on

Comments

  • Wow, you've been busy!  Looking great.

    /Chris
  • Many thanks Chris.
    I posted this a while back and was puzzled that no-one had commented yet.

    Currently working on the face shield and low profile movement sensors for the lips and brows.
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