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1Scratching an idea, from a termo cup and a chinese robot...
I started this robot in 2016 spring, for the campus party show in Mexico.
I has been doing robots since 2004, for the latin american robotics contest, when I was at university, but I really love doing them and time to time I enjoy started a new one. (I have 6 different robots)
I choose a starwars character because I'm a fan since I remember, and I was working in a self balancing robot but it doesn't seems to nice, so, I decided to buid a Storm trooper (dark side of the force rules!)
I had this starwars termo, with a storm trooper cover
I also had a self balancing robot: Kib (the cheap chinese version of woowe Mip)
Kib robot hasn't moving parts and also the self balance control sucks (and it's worst than mip's control balance), so, first, I cut the head and atached and old vision camera that was developed in 2005 for latin american robotics contest, and 2 servos for pan and tilt movements
This head is really ugly, and doesn't has enough space to place all the electronics inside.
I tried to cover it with termoformable poliestirene but the results was too bad...
So, I started to "hacking" my Kib robot, changing the head for the storm trooper cover, but storm trooper's head are very large at the bottom and very very difficult to move in X axis
The Kib has some ugly stripes in the body, and this horrible "cyan" button in the chest. I covered the stripes with epoxic clay, change the button for a square hole and add 2 servos in order to move the arms.
I also add ViXion, my artificial vision camera and 1 sharp's GP2D12 distance sensor in the head (eyes)
The body has also 3 GP2Y0A60 distance sensors to avoid obstacles and navigate alone
The problem is to move the head in X axis:
At first I tried to cut some plastic from trooper's head but it wasn't enough, then I partially solve the problem adding a PVC tube from scratch
But, still, X axis movement has only a few degreer of freedom.
The answer was to cut all the bottom part of the helmet and re-build the head with expoxic clay
Then cut an electrolitic capacitor by half and use each half to reconstruct the "breath intakes"
mmm it doesn't look like storm trooper... =O(
But, old school epoxic clay does the job...
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2Doing the face
I know... at this point many of you will terrified and claim why not to do all the job in 3D printin, but at that time I only has days to finish the robot for campus party, and also old school technics are "old, but not obsolete"... (said by T100)
I like working with epoxic clay because you can glimpse how the work progress, and change it just by cutting and sanding...
Opps, it looks like duck or hokey player face...
Ok, just not looks like a storm trooper helmet but with some extra epoxic clay...
First, cover the face with painter's tape to add some black details
I added the tiny holes in the "breath intakes" using a stripe of pin connectors...
The "nose" can be covered with some poliestirene sheet
Now, this is how it looks, the head can move freely in X and Y axes...
You can note that the original body's shoulders has been removed and refilled with epoxic clay in order to give more freedom in head's X axis
After the head has the right shape, it looks more like a storm trooper, I didn't wanted to look "exactly" like the new order starwars trilogy but some between original storm trooper and the newest storm trooper...
After several hours waiting to epoxic clay to dry and get hard, now is the time to sand and sand and sand...
This is the final result after sanding, painting and polishing the paint... (I used white spray painting and a dremel to polish)
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3Making the chest screen and controls
Remember the square hole in the Kib's modified body?
I wanted to add some nice and cool screen at the robot chest, I used a module called WeBeatOs, this module has an Oled creen with 96 x 64 pixels and a mp3 player inside
This module has 2 purposes:
1.- Display pictures, status, or info about the robots mision's
2.- Use the mp3 player feature to playback voices, blaster sounds and starwars sound's effects.
If we want to destroy those rebel robots we must know their scum "pictures" ... =O)
This module has a joystick and 4 buttons to select diferents actions, so, I included in the robot's chest...
The hole in the center, which contains joystick and buttons, was covered with poliestirene sheet...
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4Finishing the body...
After filling all gaps with epoxic clay and sanding all the robot's body, it's time to finish some details
The back piece of the body has some nice holes and deep lines. These lines was covered with black tape after painting the part.
You can also notice that 2 female 2.54 milimeters war atached in the back, for recharging the 2 LiPos cells and add some signals out (video and UART)
This is the front frame after painting and polishing, black details was covered with painter's tape
And this is the final result after assembling all the parts...
There are 2 anntenas in the back: 1 for 2.4 Ghz wireless module and 1 for 5.8 Ghz video transmiter...
In the head there are 2 modules: The camera for FPV and follow objects (by color) and the GPS for navigation
Ffinally, the blaster was not made, but it's from a cheap storm trooper toy.
The back scenario was made with cereal boxes and internet pictures of star wars...
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5The result
Hacking a Kib robot and transforming into storm trooper take 2.5 weeks, but I think that the result was amazing!
Now the family has grown... =O)
Victor Serrano
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