New Head For RN

[rep001]

this is probably a very small step for most here but for novice Rep001 this is something i am chuffed with.Not the finished article as i have some good ideas for mk 2 but thought i would share a simply video clip with you anyway....
thanks.

http://robosavvy.com/Builders/rep001/

[beermat]

A collection of very small steps will eventually take you a long way! This forum ranges all the way from novices to experts, but virtually all of us are experimentors, so sharing ideas, thoughts, pictures, videos of anything Robonova based, however big or small, is what we all live for on here, as long as things are 'real' and not made of car....well, thats another story. At least that is true for me. So, this is all good stuff! I saw your video and for some reason I thought that if a small missile was mounted either side of your RNs head, it'd be a really intimidating looking 'bot!

A head mod is, for me, what enables you to give your robot an appearance of an actual personality, and I have one definate recommendation that I feel I must exhort you to do if you are doing a head mod - two multicolored 'eyes', powered from the PWM ports. I think the first post I saw on here about that (apologies to anon if I'm wrong) was hivemind in conjunction with bullit here, about the multicolored eyes hives robot has (and mine, too, now!), and a lot of the info you need is in that thread.

I did the same mod after seeing his video (but before his post), and it's relatively easy if you can use a soldering iron. I ordered pretty much the same tri-color LED as they did (and spares!! you need spares when you burn them out accidentally!! doh!), but with pins rather than SMD form, which made soldering easier for me. But, in my template code, I can now have red, blue, green, yellow or white eyes on demand. Everytime I switch him on, he chooses a random eye colour and sticks with it for that powered on session. He also blinks every few seconds when inactive; occasionally looks around left and right too, when inactive (a 'boredom' routine I added to my program a la Robosapien). His eyes go red with anger/embarassment when the tilt sensor kicks in and he automatically picks himself up from a fall. 'Disco' light flashes when he does something impressive or finishes his pornographic moves I use to impress my like-minded, very childish, friends. Simple things, but gives it tons of personality. Look at hives handspring movies and ask yourself how he could have expressed what a puss.....a coward his particular Robonova is without the head motion and eye colours!

Also, I find it great for debugging. I have a routine that 'flashes' out a number; a reading from, say, the tilt sensor. Blue flash per hundred, green flash per ten, red flash per single digit, so 231 is blue-blue-green-green-green-red. Also, he does a quick red or green flash when I toggle my gyro off and on, and also when I 'shift' up and down my controls on the remote between two different sets of control templates.

So, keep on with the small steps, and I look forward to MKII - with two eyes

Oh, and finally, as an ex-pat Brit stuck in the US of A, it's great to see the word 'chuffed' now and again!

[Pev]

Chuffed indeed, brilliant. Love the new head. Will look forward to seeing more when MKII gets done.

Pev

[rep001]

Thanks guys for the encouraging and humourous replies.This is great fun and the learning is a real challenge for me. GREAT STUFF! I'm Double CHUFFED !!!!

[rep001]

There you go.Thats Robie, i did try some missiles from a warhammer model but he looked crazy (in a good way) but his arms kept catching them when in full Bauer Fu mode.Hope ya like him, a picture his Mum will be proud of........

[hivemind]

I have also designed a new head for my robot. I decided to add another servo while I was designing, so now I have an up and down motion to the head. And although I probably will not keep the head on during fighting (ill remove the servos and go with something that has less weight) I will certainly have it on when I am doing things other than combat and acrobatics.



As one can see clearly (by clicking on the image) the head is more of a mask that fits on the new servo, which in turn is connected to the other servo for rotation.

[tempusmaster]

This "robot head" design is unreal, though I'm not sure if this much flexibility and expression would be feasible to implement with a robot the size of a Robonova or KHR-2HV.

[H3dude]

Hey nice work guys, I totally agree with giving your RN1 some personality and posts like these make me

I tried making a simple head a while ago, it was basically the same idea as Rep's but with a Futaba s3004 and two LED's wired from the original RN1 LED.

Well, a few months ago I took a break from the gryo madness and came up with this version using two orange-ish-yellow LEDs and a couple brackets from Lynxmotion. Two of these http://www.lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx?productID=286&CategoryID=87 and two of these plastic bracket hinges that I cut down to fit on the front and back, one drilled with eye holes for the LED's http://www.lynxmotion.com/Product.aspx?productID=261&CategoryID=87.

Here's the result http://www.theoddrobot.com/images/robonova_v_head.wmv
He looks a little big-headed, but I like it for some reason. I like that all the wires and the servo are hidden under the brackets. The weight difference is negligeable imo, but the bolts on the top pose a definite problem when RN1 does the headstand. Otherwise everything is still pretty good and I'm working on a solution to the bolts.

[Pev]

Nice Head H3dude, definately gives him personality. In fact I think that is my personal favorite head to date. There is something about the 2 yellow eyes.........

Pev

[H3dude]

Thanks Pev, I'll post a how-to on assembling the brackets eventually. It's pretty self-explanatory tho.