DIY Robot Head Made Out of RGB LED Lights

In this instructable, you will be taught how to make a decorative robot head light by using RGB LED lights to create a visual effect in the robot's mouth, the lights can shine brightly colored rainbow lights back and forth, almost as if the robot is tryiing to communicate! This design can be used at parties, it has the ability to make your party a bit more fun and interesting if the theme you are looking for is a futuristic-themed party. This design can also be used as a night light in a kid's bedroom, if a child refuses their parents' dismissal in their bedroom because they are afraid of the dark, the robot head can be placed inside the child's bedroom, making them feel much more secured as they have a little robot buddy to accompany them by shining their beautiful rainbow lights in the darkness. The robot itself is a adorable design so the children will not be scared of it, it uses rather friendly olors and designs such as brightly colored dominoe blocks in the shades of orange, blue, and green along with two sets of charming eyes. These two situations can be solved with this amazing robot head masterpiece. To conclude, the cute eyes of the robot may also attract many of your party guests, not to mention, it's a hit with the kids too!

6x 74HC595 8-Bit Shift Registers

16x RGB LED light bulbs

1x Arduino Leonardo board

3x (7x20cm) cardboard

1x (4.5x20.5cm) cardboard

1x (12.4x20.4cm) cardboard

1x (7x13cm) cardboard

1x large bread board

a couple of cable wires

1x (12.5x20cm) plastic piece

2x (6.7x6.7cm) red lid

1x blank sheet of paper

1x sharpie marker

1x purple, red, yellow, and green color pencils

1x scissors

1x Ruler

1x hot glue gun

2x hot glue sticks

1x tube of grey paint

1x blue cable wire

56x dominoes in the colors of orange, green and blue

#1 photo:

3x (7x20cm) cardboard

1x (4.5x20.5cm) cardboard

1x (12.4x20.4cm) cardboard

#2 photo:

2x (6.7x6.7cm) red lid

#3 photo:

1x (7x13cm) cardboard

#4 photo:

The three different colors of the dominoes (orange, blue & green)

#5 photo:

74HC595 8-Bit Shift Registers

#6 photo:

Arduino Leonardo board

#7 photo:

RGB LED light bulb

#8 photo:

Breadboard

#9 photo:

Cable wires

#10 photo:

Ruler

#11 photo:

Grey paint

#12 photo

plastic piece

#13 photo:

scissors

#14 photo:

blank sheet of paper

#15 photo

paint brush

#16 photo:

hot glue gun and glue sticks

#17 photo

color pencils and sharpie

#18 photo

Blue cable wire

First, gather the materials you will need which will be 2 pieces of the 7x20cm cardboard piece and the 12.4x20.4cm cardboard piece. Meanwhile plug in your hot glue gun and heat it up, to make sure the gun is hot and ready to use, use a piece of scrap paper or cardboard to try to use the gun to squeeze out glue. If the glue takes a long time to squeee out, wait for another 5 minutes before use. If the glue can get easily squeezed out, it's rady for use. Using a hot glue gun, apply a thin application of glue along one side of the longest side of the 7x20cm cardboard piece.

Next, take the 12.4x20.4cm cardboard piece and glue its longest side to the part of the 7x20cm cardboard piece where you applied your thin application of glue previously. Then, apply your glue on the second piece of the 7x20cm cardboard (again, on its longest side) and glue it to the other side of the 12.4x20.4cm cardboard piece. In the end, you should be getting two of the 7x20cm cardboard pieces glued to the two sides of the 12.4x20.4cm cardboard piece which will serve as the main structure! Check the step-by-step images on the top of the description. Be careful with your glue gun!

Apply glue on the two long ends of the 7x20cm cardboard piece, with caution, place the plastic piece over the two areas where you have just applied glue and press the plastic piece down upon the glued areas. Make sure to press it tightly to make sure everything is intact.

Take your 7x13cm cardboard piece and apply glue to the surface where you will be gluing it to the plastic piece on the bottom of the robot box. Once the glue is applied to the cardboard piece, compress it together with the plastic and make sure there are no gaps in between them. When the cardboard piece is firmly glued against the plastic piece, glue the 4.5x20.5cm cardboard piece on the top of the cardboard. Make sure to leave a distance of about 2cm above the 12.4x20.4cm cardboard piece, again, press the cardboard tightly onto its glued surface and make sure it's glued properly before letting it dry completely.

Glue the two red cap lids on the 4.5x20.5cm cardboard piece, make sure the red cap lids are glued symmetrically.....after all, we all want symmetrical eyes right?

Take 12 pieces of dominoes which will be 4 green dominoes, 4 blue dominoes, and four orange dominoes. Two of each of the colors of the three different colors of dominoes will be on each eye. Glue them horizontally on the outside of the red cap lids.

Use paint to paint the exposed areas of the 4.5x20.5cm cardboard piece. (the areas between the eyes) Take the rest of your dominoes and glue them to the bottom of the robot box. When all is done, continue to follow the pattern of the three colors to glue the rest of the pieces of dominoes on the top of the robot's head.

Using a blank sheet of paper, trace the two red lids onto the sheet of paper and draw two sets of eyes. When this is done, glue the two sets of eyes onto the red cap lids with double-sided tape. You are now finished with your robot box design! remember to leave one side of the robot box empty, don't glue more cardboard to seal it because you want to fit your lights inside the box.

Since the coding is taken from my midterm design project, it will be the same. In this robot box design, again, I am only using the 4HC595 8-Bit Shift Registers so please ignore the shift registers on the picture above which are not the 4HC595 8-Bit Shift Registers. However, the wires that are attached in the pictures are exactly how I attached my wires on my breadboard, so following the exact positions in plugging the wires on the breadboard from the picture above will give you the exact results you will need to make the robot headlight up successfully.

The code can be downloaded from the files below, if you have plugged all of the wires from the image shown previously before then you can upload the code into your Arduino Leonardo board and check to see if your RGB LED lights can light up successfully.

As you plug your cable wire onto your computer to allow the code to transmit to your Arduino Leonardo board, your RGB LED lights should look like this. It should shine brightly colored rainbow lights from the left to the right and change its colors in the formation of blueish to purplish, etc.

Place the lights inside of the robot box which you have made earlier before, the plastic piece is supposed to reflect the RGB LED lights, and the cardboards on its top is supposed to cover up the wires and the Arduino Leonardo board in terms of making it more aesthetic and more appealing to the eyes. The video above will show you how to assemble the pieces of work together and assemble as one final masterpiece.

So.....here is the final product reveal! In this commercial, I will go into a scene of acting to represent a scenario in which this design can be used.