The 2.5mm aluminium sheet arrived, and I spent a weekend sawing it with a hacksaw and drilling by hand and with an electric drill.
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If you plan on doing anything similar yourself, I have two tips for you. Get the sheet attached to something heavy securely, a good vise or clamps can speed up your sawing greatly, and don't arrange the parts the way I did in there, interlocking, without a straight sawing line separating them. It's much easier if you can separate the elements with straight cuts first.
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Then some drilling and a lot of filing, and we have workable legs. Note that it vaguely resembles a knife, mostly because it's made of shiny metal. But all the edges are rounded, and the tip is not sharp either.
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Finished robot. Yes, it does look like hacked by hand, and it would look much more "finished" if I used a cnc machine or some kind of other cutting service. But I happen to be happy with that looks, and I don't plan on making more than this one prototype. I added some RGB LEDs to act as eyes, but they are not connected to anything right now. If I ever replace the wooden body with a custom PCB, I will probably include footprints for those LEDs and connect them to spare pins, but for now I haven't decided if I will ever go for that.
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Finally, a family photo of all three bug robots: #Wee Bug, #Fluffbug and Bigbug all together.
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