I guess this belongs here
I'm trying to build an animatronic but I'm not a huge engineer, I need some professional advice and help with it. I know basic stuff but honestly I have no idea what parts I need other than servos and joins, and cameras and lights, and a fur covering. I'm trying to build a biped anthropomorphic animatronic cat with a few students in school, so far it's me and one other person who knows a lot more about engineering than I do. However I know that programming him to walk, see objects, and to talk are probably gonna be very challenging, though I don't care because I really want my cat and I'm getting tired of waiting lol.
I also need some money, from what I know it's expensive, and well, I'll be 15 in three days so I don't have a job to pay for anything. I would love to raise money but honestly who is gonna fund a 'stupid robotic cat that a 15 year old could never do'
I just want to point out very quickly I have lots of determination, I've wanted my cat (named Chromatic) for a few months now, I want him so I can talk to him, that's the main thing. I barely have any true friends, I get very lonely, and don't you think it would be cool to talk to a huge animatronic feline? He has to walk, he needs to keep up with me as well, so I might design wheels on him too if he can't walk fast enough.
I already know some difficult things such as how am I gonna program him to see? Or to stay balanced? Well as I said I don't really care how hard it is, because, I will say this a thousand times:
I. Want. My. Cat.
And I'm not gonna let anyone tell me I'm 'too ignorant' or 'too young' to do this, age truly doesn't matter, I'm a sophomore, who is gonna be taking some college courses next semester, so I'm pretty smart. And I also don't like being told I can't do things. Age doesn't really matter to me. I matured very quickly, I'm passionate about things, and when I am, I'm determined to get what I want. Sounds a bit snobbish, but honestly, I want to make this cat as complex as possible just to say I did it. I don't care how long it takes, I just need some help/advice.
Sorry if I sound, uhm, 'marish,' I guess you could say, but I'm like seriously fed up with getting no help. No one really is supporting me in it, my parents are, and it's upsetting because this is something extremely important to me.
andmyfatherisasocalled'engineer'
But yea thanks, if you're a professional I would love to talk to you! I normally sound a lot more serious lol I'm pretty tired, I plan on staying up late to teach myself more :DDD
Needing Help
Moderators: kgudger, bfinio, Moderators
Needing Help
Last edited by Chromatic on Sat Sep 10, 2016 7:07 pm, edited 1 time in total.
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MadelineB
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Re: Needing Help
Hello Chromatic,
Are you building this animatronic as part of a science project?
The experts here at Ask the Expert Forum on Science Buddies are happy to answer specific questions about science projects being conducted by students in grades K-12.
If this is not part of a school science project, you should look at other forums on the internet for advice.
If this is a science project, you will find good information on getting started in the Science Buddies guides:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... uide.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml
Are you building this animatronic as part of a science project?
The experts here at Ask the Expert Forum on Science Buddies are happy to answer specific questions about science projects being conducted by students in grades K-12.
If this is not part of a school science project, you should look at other forums on the internet for advice.
If this is a science project, you will find good information on getting started in the Science Buddies guides:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... uide.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... ndex.shtml
Re: Needing Help
Hello!
Yes, I suppose you could call it a 'science project,' if building it for a TSA competition counts? My school also has exhibitions which I could tell what I learned, how I built him etc. But it's not a requirement or anything, other than the fact I wanted to go to a TSA competition with him but it depends how long it would be to build him and to find the money for it.
As for the links I'll have to check them out! Thanks for the help ^^
Yes, I suppose you could call it a 'science project,' if building it for a TSA competition counts? My school also has exhibitions which I could tell what I learned, how I built him etc. But it's not a requirement or anything, other than the fact I wanted to go to a TSA competition with him but it depends how long it would be to build him and to find the money for it.
As for the links I'll have to check them out! Thanks for the help ^^
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bfinio
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Re: Needing Help
Hi Chromatic,
I have a Ph.D. in robotics so I hope I can provide some guidelines. First, obviously you are choosing to tackle a very difficult problem - but you're well aware of that, so that's OK. I would recommend breaking your problem up into several smaller problems that you can tackle individually. Then, depending on your priorities, you can decide which one to address first.
- Walking: building a walking robot is really hard. Much harder than building a wheeled robot. Watch this video to see what I mean: https://youtu.be/g0TaYhjpOfo. Those are robots built by teams of professional researchers with millions of dollars. In short, a robot with wheels generally won't fall over (think about cars - they only flip over if you are going around a turn way too fast. A parked car will never just flip over on its own); whereas a robot with legs has to be programmed to balance at all times. Humans are really good at balancing so we don't have to think about it very hard, but it's actually a difficult task to program. That's certainly not to say it can't be done - for example, see some projects here (Instructables will be a good site to get familiar with if you aren't already): http://www.instructables.com/howto/bipedal+robot/. But, if you wanted to tackle the other challenges first, you could make this part easier by starting out with a wheeled chassis, like the one in our BlueBot projects: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... M-6300-KIT.
- Navigation/obstacle avoidance. This is another thing that humans are really good at. You can walk around a cluttered room without bumping into all the furniture or tripping over things. How do you help a robot drive around without crashing? Luckily you don't need full-blown "vision" (see next point) to do that. You can use "bump sensors" that tell the robot when it bumps into something, like in this project https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure. Ultrasonic sensors like this https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13959 are very popular in robotics because they can measure how far away the robot is from an object, so it can avoid crashing. Again, you should be able to find lots of examples of robots that use these sensors: http://www.instructables.com/howto/ultr ... sor+robot/
- Computer vision/object recognition: yet another one that humans are really good at. You can immediately tell the difference between an apple and a tomato. How do you quantify that difference for a computer? Color? They're both red. Shape? They're both round. Luckily there are some free tools out there like OpenCV that can help you get started with computer vision: http://opencv.org/. In this case, if this is what you want to work on first, you don't even need a robot at all - you can just use a computer with a webcam to get started.
- Speech recognition/conversation: if you're noticing a trend here...you can probably guess what I'll say. It is relatively easy to write a program with a fixed number of responses to certain questions (e.g. every time you say "Hello" the robot will say "Hello" back). It is MUCH harder to write a program that will try to interpret anything you say to it and try to answer questions or have a conversation. Again, luckily people have already written a bunch of software to do this https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... ecognition and there are several popular projects sort of modeled after Jarvis from the Iron Man movies, if you've seen those: http://jasperproject.github.io/ or http://stevenhickson.blogspot.com/2013/ ... ry-pi.html
Finally, you may have noticed that many of the links so far use an Arduino https://www.arduino.cc/ or a Raspberry Pi https://www.raspberrypi.org/ - those are both very popular platforms with robot hobbyists that you might want to get familiar with.
Robotics is a very broad field - there are professional researchers and engineers who devote their entire careers to just a narrow part of one of the bullet points listed above. But, don't let that deter you from getting started and finding out what interests you most. Setting out to build your own autonomous robot is a great way to start learning. There are a lot of skills you will need to learn along the way, so Google will always be your friend - you will usually be able to find good tutorials or guides online. Here are a few Science Buddies resources that might be useful:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... lder.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... oard.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... uino.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/raspberr ... s-kit#help
SparkFun and Adafruit are two hobbyist electronics companies that sell electronics and robotics parts, and also have a lot of good tutorials:
https://www.sparkfun.com/
https://www.adafruit.com/
I know that was a ton of information, but I hope it helps!
Ben
I have a Ph.D. in robotics so I hope I can provide some guidelines. First, obviously you are choosing to tackle a very difficult problem - but you're well aware of that, so that's OK. I would recommend breaking your problem up into several smaller problems that you can tackle individually. Then, depending on your priorities, you can decide which one to address first.
- Walking: building a walking robot is really hard. Much harder than building a wheeled robot. Watch this video to see what I mean: https://youtu.be/g0TaYhjpOfo. Those are robots built by teams of professional researchers with millions of dollars. In short, a robot with wheels generally won't fall over (think about cars - they only flip over if you are going around a turn way too fast. A parked car will never just flip over on its own); whereas a robot with legs has to be programmed to balance at all times. Humans are really good at balancing so we don't have to think about it very hard, but it's actually a difficult task to program. That's certainly not to say it can't be done - for example, see some projects here (Instructables will be a good site to get familiar with if you aren't already): http://www.instructables.com/howto/bipedal+robot/. But, if you wanted to tackle the other challenges first, you could make this part easier by starting out with a wheeled chassis, like the one in our BlueBot projects: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... M-6300-KIT.
- Navigation/obstacle avoidance. This is another thing that humans are really good at. You can walk around a cluttered room without bumping into all the furniture or tripping over things. How do you help a robot drive around without crashing? Luckily you don't need full-blown "vision" (see next point) to do that. You can use "bump sensors" that tell the robot when it bumps into something, like in this project https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... #procedure. Ultrasonic sensors like this https://www.sparkfun.com/products/13959 are very popular in robotics because they can measure how far away the robot is from an object, so it can avoid crashing. Again, you should be able to find lots of examples of robots that use these sensors: http://www.instructables.com/howto/ultr ... sor+robot/
- Computer vision/object recognition: yet another one that humans are really good at. You can immediately tell the difference between an apple and a tomato. How do you quantify that difference for a computer? Color? They're both red. Shape? They're both round. Luckily there are some free tools out there like OpenCV that can help you get started with computer vision: http://opencv.org/. In this case, if this is what you want to work on first, you don't even need a robot at all - you can just use a computer with a webcam to get started.
- Speech recognition/conversation: if you're noticing a trend here...you can probably guess what I'll say. It is relatively easy to write a program with a fixed number of responses to certain questions (e.g. every time you say "Hello" the robot will say "Hello" back). It is MUCH harder to write a program that will try to interpret anything you say to it and try to answer questions or have a conversation. Again, luckily people have already written a bunch of software to do this https://www.google.com/webhp?sourceid=c ... ecognition and there are several popular projects sort of modeled after Jarvis from the Iron Man movies, if you've seen those: http://jasperproject.github.io/ or http://stevenhickson.blogspot.com/2013/ ... ry-pi.html
Finally, you may have noticed that many of the links so far use an Arduino https://www.arduino.cc/ or a Raspberry Pi https://www.raspberrypi.org/ - those are both very popular platforms with robot hobbyists that you might want to get familiar with.
Robotics is a very broad field - there are professional researchers and engineers who devote their entire careers to just a narrow part of one of the bullet points listed above. But, don't let that deter you from getting started and finding out what interests you most. Setting out to build your own autonomous robot is a great way to start learning. There are a lot of skills you will need to learn along the way, so Google will always be your friend - you will usually be able to find good tutorials or guides online. Here are a few Science Buddies resources that might be useful:
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... lder.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... oard.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... uino.shtml
https://www.sciencebuddies.org/raspberr ... s-kit#help
SparkFun and Adafruit are two hobbyist electronics companies that sell electronics and robotics parts, and also have a lot of good tutorials:
https://www.sparkfun.com/
https://www.adafruit.com/
I know that was a ton of information, but I hope it helps!
Ben
Re: Needing Help
Wow, that's a lot of helpful stuff!
First off, I have already thought about most of what you said, luckily, but didn't look into them that much. A few points you made that I didn't think about was bumping into stuff, and objects that could look the same. Fortunately, I have already started breaking down the angles of movement, if that even means anything in programming him how to walk. And as for balance, I have thought about building wheels at the bottom of his feet in case he needs to walk faster but he's not programmed to go that fast. I also met with someone in my classes at school who suggested .. something I can't remember the name of for balance (it's like a big ball inside of a ring inside of another ring that when you rotate it, they all move to keep the balance in the center). No idea if that would help any, but we've just been tossing ideas around.
Though my big concern was money. I'm not a rich kid or anything so that's a big issue, I'm not so worried about anything else right now. I've tried making a GoFundMe but.. didn't get anything. Are there any tips or ideas for that?
--
I haven't gone through all the links yet so I might have more comments or questions later.
First off, I have already thought about most of what you said, luckily, but didn't look into them that much. A few points you made that I didn't think about was bumping into stuff, and objects that could look the same. Fortunately, I have already started breaking down the angles of movement, if that even means anything in programming him how to walk. And as for balance, I have thought about building wheels at the bottom of his feet in case he needs to walk faster but he's not programmed to go that fast. I also met with someone in my classes at school who suggested .. something I can't remember the name of for balance (it's like a big ball inside of a ring inside of another ring that when you rotate it, they all move to keep the balance in the center). No idea if that would help any, but we've just been tossing ideas around.
Though my big concern was money. I'm not a rich kid or anything so that's a big issue, I'm not so worried about anything else right now. I've tried making a GoFundMe but.. didn't get anything. Are there any tips or ideas for that?
--
I haven't gone through all the links yet so I might have more comments or questions later.
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bfinio
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Re: Needing Help
So, the money problem could depend heavily on where you live (don't post that here, students aren't allowed to post personal contact information in the forums for privacy reasons). Here are some ideas:
- One idea is to try to salvage electrical and mechanical parts from old equipment/appliances for free. For example, you can take apart an old DVD player and there are some motors inside. There are lots of guides online for disassembling and salvaging parts like that.
- Do you know if your town has a "makerspace" or "hackerspace"? They might have a bin of old parts you could use, or people who can help you salvage parts.
- Check your local library - many libraries now have 3D printers that they let people use (not sure if you'll have to pay for the materials though).
- See if there is a local company like an engineering firm that will donate parts or sponsor you.
- Try to stretch the project out over a longer period of time instead of buying a whole bunch of parts all at once.
Good luck!
- One idea is to try to salvage electrical and mechanical parts from old equipment/appliances for free. For example, you can take apart an old DVD player and there are some motors inside. There are lots of guides online for disassembling and salvaging parts like that.
- Do you know if your town has a "makerspace" or "hackerspace"? They might have a bin of old parts you could use, or people who can help you salvage parts.
- Check your local library - many libraries now have 3D printers that they let people use (not sure if you'll have to pay for the materials though).
- See if there is a local company like an engineering firm that will donate parts or sponsor you.
- Try to stretch the project out over a longer period of time instead of buying a whole bunch of parts all at once.
Good luck!
Re: Needing Help
Well where I live right now is a kind of small town, so I'm not sure if there are any places with stuff I could use from there. I do however live fairly close to some big cities so I could try looking around there, but I would need a ride to do such.
Also, there are things I would need for an exoskeleton (such as a fursuit) which costs a lot of money (for a professional made one but when I make it, it doesn't look so good). Fursuits are roughly 2000+ dollars (I've seen them go up to 4000 which is ridiculous) and I would still somehow need that money. Of course he would need to be built first, but it's still money that adds up.
Also, there are things I would need for an exoskeleton (such as a fursuit) which costs a lot of money (for a professional made one but when I make it, it doesn't look so good). Fursuits are roughly 2000+ dollars (I've seen them go up to 4000 which is ridiculous) and I would still somehow need that money. Of course he would need to be built first, but it's still money that adds up.
Re: Needing Help
Hello everyone,
I'm currently looking for an internship in "Animatronic Engineering" but I can't find any sites that can tell me about engineers around my city/in my state. I know animatronic engineering combines electrical, robotic, mechanical, surface and structuring engineering to make animatronics, so I'm mainly looking for a robotics engineer. But as I said, I can't find any.
I know it's against the rules to post where I live, so I don't want to get into trouble for doing so (so I won't unless they say it's okay). I'm open to saying which state I'm in if I need to, but I honestly can't find anything around. It's required in my school to find an internship that you do twice a week and school is on the other three days, and I'm running out of time to find an internship.
I just need some help finding some people I could work with. I saw you can't PM anyone here, so I couldn't message bfinio for help. So, I'm just a little stuck right now. All help is appreciated (or advice (or whatever))
Thanks everyone.
I'm currently looking for an internship in "Animatronic Engineering" but I can't find any sites that can tell me about engineers around my city/in my state. I know animatronic engineering combines electrical, robotic, mechanical, surface and structuring engineering to make animatronics, so I'm mainly looking for a robotics engineer. But as I said, I can't find any.
I know it's against the rules to post where I live, so I don't want to get into trouble for doing so (so I won't unless they say it's okay). I'm open to saying which state I'm in if I need to, but I honestly can't find anything around. It's required in my school to find an internship that you do twice a week and school is on the other three days, and I'm running out of time to find an internship.
I just need some help finding some people I could work with. I saw you can't PM anyone here, so I couldn't message bfinio for help. So, I'm just a little stuck right now. All help is appreciated (or advice (or whatever))
Thanks everyone.
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bfinio
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Re: Needing Help
Hi Chromatic,
I will double-check the rules about posting where you live. City/state might be OK as long as you don't post a specific mailing address. Even so, however, helping you find an internship is probably beyond what we can provide in this forum. Does your school have any resources to help students find internships, or are you expected to do it on your own?
Regardless, my advice would be that you're on the right track looking for robotics engineering. Animatronics engineering might be too specific and hard to find a company in your area. However, even robotics could be too specific depending on where you live...there might just not be any engineering firms around that build robots. However, since as you pointed out, robotics is very interdisciplinary, you could broaden your search even farther for more general mechanical/electrical engineering firms, and those skills would still transfer to animatronics later in your education/career.
I wouldn't try to find a specific website that lists engineering firms in your area - just use Google and Google maps. Off the top of my head, depending on where you live you might want to look into Disney Research and Boston Dynamics to see if they offer internships:
https://www.disneyresearch.com/research-labs/
http://www.bostondynamics.com/index.html
I will double-check the rules about posting where you live. City/state might be OK as long as you don't post a specific mailing address. Even so, however, helping you find an internship is probably beyond what we can provide in this forum. Does your school have any resources to help students find internships, or are you expected to do it on your own?
Regardless, my advice would be that you're on the right track looking for robotics engineering. Animatronics engineering might be too specific and hard to find a company in your area. However, even robotics could be too specific depending on where you live...there might just not be any engineering firms around that build robots. However, since as you pointed out, robotics is very interdisciplinary, you could broaden your search even farther for more general mechanical/electrical engineering firms, and those skills would still transfer to animatronics later in your education/career.
I wouldn't try to find a specific website that lists engineering firms in your area - just use Google and Google maps. Off the top of my head, depending on where you live you might want to look into Disney Research and Boston Dynamics to see if they offer internships:
https://www.disneyresearch.com/research-labs/
http://www.bostondynamics.com/index.html
Re: Needing Help
For finding an internship it's a little of both. The school is like what they call "Pre-College" where we can't depend on a teacher to do things for us. The teachers are called "advisers" and are only here for help. My adviser called the businesses, but I had to find their information etc.
I live in Kentucky, about 20 minutes away from Louisville, Frankfort, and Lexington (they're all around pretty much). I've looked on Google for robotics, mechanical and electrical in Kentucky in general, but I can't find anything (unless it's industrial robotics that are in factories). Whenever I say the word "Animatronic Engineering" people have no idea what I'm saying. Half the time they can't even say it. I also looked for a site like this but for engineering/engineering in Kentucky, couldn't find anything like that too.
The only robotics engineering I could ever find in Kentucky was an animatronist, he had an example of a very realistic (and rather cute) lion that moved his jaw and could blink, but I found that months ago before this school was even mentioned and I can't find it now. Plus I don't know where it was in Kentucky, but it could have been a few hours away/the other side of Kentucky. ((And I also can't find his freaking site as I've said)).
I live in Kentucky, about 20 minutes away from Louisville, Frankfort, and Lexington (they're all around pretty much). I've looked on Google for robotics, mechanical and electrical in Kentucky in general, but I can't find anything (unless it's industrial robotics that are in factories). Whenever I say the word "Animatronic Engineering" people have no idea what I'm saying. Half the time they can't even say it. I also looked for a site like this but for engineering/engineering in Kentucky, couldn't find anything like that too.
The only robotics engineering I could ever find in Kentucky was an animatronist, he had an example of a very realistic (and rather cute) lion that moved his jaw and could blink, but I found that months ago before this school was even mentioned and I can't find it now. Plus I don't know where it was in Kentucky, but it could have been a few hours away/the other side of Kentucky. ((And I also can't find his freaking site as I've said)).
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bfinio
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Re: Needing Help
Hmm - unfortunately that can be a downside of living in a somewhat rural area in the central US. Many times high-tech companies are more concentrated around cities like San Francisco or Boston on the coasts.
Wikipedia may be a good resource if you haven't looked there already - it often has sections on local economy or lists of companies in cities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_o ... Louisville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... ,_Kentucky
Another option could be to contact the city's chamber of commerce and see if they have a list of companies:
https://www.greaterlouisville.com/
However, just looking on Google Maps for "robotics", I found two companies in Loisville and Frankfort respectively:
https://robotics.kawasaki.com/en1/index ... guage_id=1
http://www.insolrobotics.com/home.html
It looks like they're for manufacturing and not animatronics, but again, you might not be able to get that specific, and any experience with robotics at all would be useful at this point.
Wikipedia may be a good resource if you haven't looked there already - it often has sections on local economy or lists of companies in cities:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_o ... Louisville
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_m ... ,_Kentucky
Another option could be to contact the city's chamber of commerce and see if they have a list of companies:
https://www.greaterlouisville.com/
However, just looking on Google Maps for "robotics", I found two companies in Loisville and Frankfort respectively:
https://robotics.kawasaki.com/en1/index ... guage_id=1
http://www.insolrobotics.com/home.html
It looks like they're for manufacturing and not animatronics, but again, you might not be able to get that specific, and any experience with robotics at all would be useful at this point.
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bfinio
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Re: Needing Help
Hi Chromatic - a couple more pieces of advice I got from discussing this with someone else at Science Buddies:
1. We have a "Find a Mentor" resource - it's kind of old but some of the information here might be useful: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tors.shtml
2. It looks like the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville both have robotics programs. You might be able to get an internship or research assistant position in a lab at one of those schools; if your school would be OK with that instead of a regular "company."
Hope that helps.
1. We have a "Find a Mentor" resource - it's kind of old but some of the information here might be useful: https://www.sciencebuddies.org/science- ... tors.shtml
2. It looks like the University of Kentucky and the University of Louisville both have robotics programs. You might be able to get an internship or research assistant position in a lab at one of those schools; if your school would be OK with that instead of a regular "company."
Hope that helps.
Re: Needing Help
My post never sent yesterday, sorry.
My brother used to go to UK before he moved to Sweden, so I've been on campus there quite a few times.
I'm not done looking at all the links but I'll see if they can help. Thanks so much.
My brother used to go to UK before he moved to Sweden, so I've been on campus there quite a few times.
I'm not done looking at all the links but I'll see if they can help. Thanks so much.