Davidaharrison
New Project BD-1
Well, here I go again.....
Last year I built a Chopper droid using ARC with the help of my daughters to accompany them while they cosplayed as Sabine and Ahsoka from rebels.
This year my eldest is working on a character from the same show with a robot mounted on her shoulder. She's not looking for anything too elaborate so it's going just to be a straight-up Arduino running a sketch with a few routines to turn a couple of servos and flash a few lights. She's been hogging the printer.
However, she's convinced me that I should do the same and there's a new Star Wars game out Jedi Survivor that features a Robot BD-1 that sits on this character's back.
I figured it would be a good candidate for me to try an EZB-tiny as I'd like to incorporate some sensors so maybe it can interact with it with less input from me. I have some files from the awesome Mr. Baddley who I also used files to complete Choppers head. I've begone the modifications and printing is underway, and my EZB-tiny has been shipped.
Below is what I've planned out so far.
I'll be using 7 servos total leaves me one spot free on the ezb-tiny: 2 servos will control neck tilt 1 servo Head rotation 1 servo right eye 1 servo left eye 1 servo raise/lower neck 2 servos for ears
What's yet to be worked out lol
Sound- From my experience with chopper I found that I need a lot of volume for a droid to be heard. my original 10w speakers were too quiet for Chopper, he's now running a 160w system. I'm thinking the onboard EZB-tiny speaker is not going to cut it but with limited space, there's going to be a comprise I'm just not sure yet on possible solutions.
Lighting - The droid has a multi-colored light matrix at the back of his head. The original design used APA106 LEDs (96 of them) then use an Arduino to run the neopixel sketch. It was however not controllable. I'm thinking ideally I'd like to connect this to the EZB in some way to allow some communication to maybe link certain light sequences to actions.
Motion Tracking - I'd love to get some basic kind of motion tracking to do some very basic puppeting. So if people are walking by he sometimes tracks automatically. I see that if I bought the EZB directly I would have got the camera but I believe as I bought it through Robotshop I won't. I've never tried any kind of tracking with ARC, I'm not looking for super accuracy just some automatic movement that's somewhat linked to the surroundings. Also any recommendations on what my best options are for adding a camera to this setup? is the EZB camera going to be my best option here, I really only see the ESP32 Cam as a camera option showing up, I know this can be setup as an EZB but can it be linked to the EZB-Tiny?
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Been just over a month since my last update, only minor changes. But it's starting to come together. I've been busy trying my hand at building the costume to go with the droid. I think I prefer droid building to sewing.
I scrapped the esp-32 as a camera option. Not sure what was happening but it was upsetting the IO-tiny. I have however discovered ARC mobile and we are thinking of using the esp with Rebecca's small seeker droid and running ARC mobile on her Android phone. She's just got a couple of servos and lights so I'm sure we can do it using a single script on a loop. With a control panel option maybe for some controls to override it if she wants.
Its a Pity voice doesn’t work with ARC mobile or script collection.
For BD-1 I'm waiting to order an EZB camera, will give that a try.
I built a DIY BD-1 back light matrix using some cheap neopixels($25CAD) for 144. Cut 3 strips, plus 2 small ones for the top, soldered them in line and stuck them on a piece of card. Switched adafruit code for 77 leds and it's running fine in a twinkle routine. Not bad for roughly $12. Runs between 15-150mA on my program so just running straight off the Arduino.
WS2812B ECO LED Strip,BTF-LIGHTING Chasing Effects 5050SMD Individually Addressable 1M 144(2X72) Pixels/m Flexible White FPCB Dream Color IP30 Non-Waterproof for Bedroom DIY Projects DC5V https://a.co/d/5Zizez5
Added both ears, originally I had a servo signal reverser and ran both servos off one output. However the 2 I bought off Amazon died during long term tests.(8 hours continued use) so I'm back to using individual servo ports for ear ear.
The neck servo I've had issues with still... I tried a 7kg servo but it was still struggling with the weight of the head. In the end I've modeled a new fixed neck that holds him at a fixed angle. The body tilt servo can still moved the head back and forward as he looks around to adjust his tilt.
I need to add some more voice commands, maybe tweak the match % a bit. Other than that it's just a case of finding a next 12v battery to tuck into my jacket to power him and getting the details and weather done.
We mounted him to the jacket I made for the costume and did a few tests to make sure he can still clear my head. So far supper happy with how things turned out.
I've also been asked to do a presentation on droid building at this year's Halcon. Super excited for that. Will be demoing ARC running Chopper and BD-1. Hopefully Rebecca's seeker droid too.
I'm really impressed with this build. So cleaver, fun and imaginative. You're going to be a hit at the show.
hi all
this would be a great robot for star wars . so awesome . send your idea to the makers of star wars . you never know .
Final details are complete. In the next month I will tidy up the project and publish it along with instructions, print files on thingiverse.
For power source I ended up using tool batteries. My old dewalt drill had died and I was looking for a replacement and that gave my the idea. Milwaukee m18 batteries provide me with 18 volts. I found a simple adapter on thingiverse. The 3ah version fits easily in my back pants pocket and is barely noticeable. Total runtime is around 5 hours on this. Though I could move up to the 5ah and probably get a whole day out of it.
I run 2 lines to a small 3d printed box which slots into the lining on my jacket. From there the powers distributed out. A 5v power buck that supplys my SBC which velcros to rear of the box. A 8v buck that supplies the aurduino that runs the rear panel (I ran out of space inside the driod so run one data line up to the led strip) and also the IO-Tiny A 20v Power line that goes up to the head to supply bucks for the big power draw servos, head tilt, head turn and body tilt.
The camera in the eye I think I have fully abandoned. As I watch more footage from the game I realized that the light in his eye kind of gives the bot some kind of living aspect and without it mine kind of didn't feel right. Besides with the voice control working I can get that interactive quality I wanted. I added a small blue LED in there and I think it highlights the focus movement in there more as well.
Its been a fun little journey now its time to finish some other projects, Choppers geting some updates and I need to prep for my EZB/ARC presentation at Halcon next month
Great project and thanks for sharing the process. You must have much fun.
I repurposed my BD-1 legs for another inmoov bash up at a smaller scale. Who knows, maybe motorize them!
Oh yes love all the starwars bots, just getting into that new Ahsoka starwars tv show, plenty of new bot candy there as well!