For a long time I have wanted to make a highly realistic robot cat for an illustration project. Think Salem the cat from Sabrina the Teenage Witch - but fatter and probably white.
I’ve just killed way too much work time this AM on this site: http://www.animalmakers.com/ which has some pretty amazing stuff. I’m sure I could figure out how to do this…eventually.
I have been working on a couple of animatronic skulls for a while. Still have a while to go…
3 axis skull
I also found an old mechanical Santa (bout 2 feet high) that just moved his arm and wobbled it’s head. I have retro fitted it with some servos to independently move the head, arm and working on the mouth…
My kid would love some sort of animatronic squirrel though…
Aw yeah. This is excellent. Are those ping pong ball eyes? I hope you’re hiding that in the bushes this Halloween.
What setup are you using for the skull? Would love ore details if you don’t mind sharing.
An animatronic squirrel would be fun especially if highly realistic.
I’ve been fascinated with the idea of using Bowden cables to transmit forces in places where you can’t (physically or esthetically) accept servos being physically close to their actuation.
Here’s a post by the guy from http://innerbreed.co.uk that gives some details about how his system works. I believe he sells the fiddly bits on his site.
The eyes are actually small rubber balls that I put RGB leds into. I’d like to find some more realistic eyes but haven’t found anything locally…
The skulls are actually plastic models commonly referred to as “Lindberg Skulls”. Do a search for “3 axis skulls” and you’ll find lots of info on the web. Mine have rc servos controlling movement and it’s controlled by some animation sequencing software called VSA… Basically you import a sound track and then control everything in relation to the sound… It’s not really interactive as it’s more like a canned show…
In my setup I use DMX controller for both the lights and servos. While normally a bit pricey there are quiet a few xmas lighting groups that have made low cost DMX equipment kits that bring down the cost…
My hope was to get things setup this year for Halloween but I doubt I’ll have it all done in time.
Are there any toy cats that are reasonably animated that we could hack? Em was talking about a chorus of robot cats controlled by a piano keyboard and that just makes me laugh to think of making one. I already have the piano keyboard as input / SFX capabilities. I just need robot cats, the more animatronic the better!
Other activity:
Butters and I both have robot parrot toys that we’ve been hacking. Well, he’s been hacking more than me. Replacing the cams and such with actual servos.
I have several, actually many of those singing fish and I’ve successfully have them under my own control - open/close mouth - flap tail - move head towards/flat from mounting board.
I have two i-Cybie dogs which I’ve hacked one of them to add a serial port for downloading commands. I think the other I will remove the onboard controller and replace with an ARM board.
I also found a Pleo dinosaur at Value Village for $10 - I have not yet done any hacking on this guy yet.
I also have a robo-dinosaur that I picked up at The Village but it’s not a pleo. That looks pretty cool. Where did you and Butters get your parrots? I’m guessing they’re furreal pets.
Sounds like hacking on furreals might be a good way to start. Are they quite frightening with the skin removed? I hope so. 
Here’s a toy robot cat with a ridiculous price tag. Finding a discarded one seems like a plan.
I have a lot of interest in this as well (probably obviously). I’ve been wanting to move towards pneumatics as you can make them pretty quiet to operate and very cheap. The simplest motor or muscle I’ve seen is taking the mesh wire cover material and line it with a membrane (one of those balloon animal balloons). When ever the pressure increases it expands in thickness and draws in the ends. I just wish there was an easy way of getting position feedback from it, have yet to come up with something good for that.
OK check this out. It’s a teddy bear where a simple servo controlled skeleton has been implanted.
The cool thing is that it can be puppeteered via a Kinnect.
Yes, they are Squawkers McCaw parrots.
Nice… I’ll be happy if I can make a couple of gophers or squirrels… Nothing really truly life like… Something like the gopher in CaddyShack
Here’s another cool project although advanced.
