Cardboard Wall-e!

Henrik

Sweden

So I thought I'd share my Wall-E so far. Since I haven't got my hands on a toy Wall-E I decided to build my own. The idea is to build him out of plywood later on, but I wanted to make a test version out of cardboard first, and this is how it looks so far:)

Got a few things to wire and so on before he is fully functional, heres a list of the features he's gonna have later on:

  • Tracks for movement
  • Vertical/horizontal head movement
  • Vertical arm movement
  • Camera in left eye
  • White bright LED as flashlight (for those night missions!:))
  • Distance sensor (maybe more than one, depends on if one is enugh to avoid stuff. They will be stationary, thats why I maybe have to use 2, or more)
  • Temperature sensor (Why not...?)
  • MP3-trigger to do some speaking
  • And probably something more I forgot...

He's currently powered by 2x2800mAH 7.2V batterypacks wich I've wired in parallel. I also threw out the wireless camera battery and now powering it through a EZ-B serial port instead.

Since I love coding, I will be writing my own controller software with the C# SDK, and try to implement some AI and stuff.

Here's some pics!

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(Night mode!)

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#2  

@Henrik - He looks great! But you left out the most important part... where'd you get those awesome looking tracks? Again, great progress!:D

Sweden
#3  

@JT - As @yippyyay said, it's the Lynxmotion set!

Sweden
#5  

Ok, some updates! Since I was happy with my cardboard version I'm now making it in wood(ish) materials (and some cardboard actually):). Here's what I've done today:

Tubes for eyes

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Four of these goes on the tubes (two on each)...

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...like this!

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Glued

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And the covering (cardboard did a great job here, again:))

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Lens in plexiglass slides in

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Finished, only missing the lens on the left eye. Yellow led diode in right eye for some effect:) And gotta say these tubes had a perfect diameter for the camera, it fits really snug

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Next step will be to make the bracket where it connects to the body, also some small details on the eyes. I've got an idea that I want to be able to tilt the eyes with a servo to create some basic facial expressions (if you can call it that). Tilt them down creates a sad expression, and up a more normal/happy face!:)

Sweden
#6  

Some updates! The head is done and mounted, (only need to attach the bright LED's). I rebuilt the body in wood and attached a arm with a claw as hand. Because the servo in the shoulder is a high torque one I needed to power it directly from the battery, so I made a very simple (and quite ugly) power distribution board which had a few ports with 5V (by a voltage regulator) and a few with 7.2 (directly distributed from the battery) so I easily can connect stuff there.

Power distribution board

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The arm with claw

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Head temporarily mounted

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Next step will be to mount the distance sensors, speaker for mp3-trigger and to give him a paintjob

United Kingdom
#7  

Henrik thats very clever looks good

How noisy are those tracks when moving?

Sweden
#8  

@winstn60 - Thanks! They're quite noisy actually, so not the best for sneaking. The tracks themselves dont make that much noise, it's mostly the motors and it may be because they're 12V and I'm running my setup on 7.2V, but I don't know. I missed that the motors is 12V when I ordered it, so I'm going to buy a set of new ones that is more suitable for my voltage and see if that makes any difference, which I need anyways to get the most out of the tracks:) Either way, it doesnt bother me that much

Australia
#9  

Great stuff Henrik, I think we are all on the lookout for some DIY tracks that are effective but not too expensive or hard to make. Can't wait for you to have your bot on video with some AI running.

Cheers

Hazbot Australia

PRO
Canada
#10  

I stumbled on this gem today. Such a good job! Wondering if there was any more progress...

#11  

Lovely. If bringing life to cardboard and packing tape doesn't exemplify what EZ-Robot is all about, I don't know what is. lol

PRO
Synthiam
#12  

ha - this is such a great robot!! It inspires me to start building robots out of cardboard and tissue boxes again, maybe! Imagine a tissue box with cognitive vision recognition and artificial intelligence? Woo!

PRO
Synthiam
#14  

I'd animate that wood grandpa robot! Man, i should start looking at animating puppets or something

#15   — Edited

love I love Cardboard robots and what could be sweeter than a Cardboard [font=OpenSans, -apple-system, BlinkMacSystemFont, "Segoe UI", Roboto, "Helvetica Neue", Arial, sans-serif, "Apple Color Emoji", "Segoe UI Emoji", "Segoe UI Symbol", "Noto Color Emoji"]Wall-E !!!

PRO
Canada
#16  

I know! Great feeling about animating something as dull and inanimate like a cardboard.

#17  

You can make anything with cardboard, Lego and EZ Robot!!!! Very cool WALL-E!!!!

#18  

Just found this, and so cool. I too get a kick out of the cardboard builds:)

PRO
Synthiam
#19  

Oh wow - blast from the past! I forgot about this robot as well. Arts and Crafts is cool when you make it robotic:D

PRO
Canada
#20  

It's fantastic to see such enthusiasm for building and animating robots like Wall-E, especially using accessible materials like cardboard. Henrik, your project sounds ambitious and well-equipped with features that will bring Wall-E to life in a unique way. The integration of various sensors and the use of ARC's Continuous servo Movement Panel, Horizontal Servo, and ADC Meter skills will certainly add a lot of functionality and interactivity to your robot.

If you need any specific advice or tips on configuring these skills in ARC or integrating the sensors and servos, feel free to ask. It's great to see such creativity in the community, and I'm here to help ensure your robotic Wall-E reaches its full potential!


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