Distance Activated Guardian

Hello, my name is Matthew and I have created a distance-activated robot that is meant to loosely resemble and act like a Guardian from the Legend of Zelda video game series. In the game, the Guardian is a powerful enemy, sensing the area around it and firing strong, powerful lasers at anything that moves. I implemented this using a distance sensor that alerts the guardian when someone approaches it from a certain distance and activates it when someone is too close.

ELECTRONICS:

• Raspberry Pi Pico W
• Servo
• Speaker
• Adafruit VL53L1X Time of Flight Distance Sensor
• LED Strand
• MicroSD card
• Alligator Clip to Male Jumper Wire (5)
• Male to Male Jumper Wire (11)
• STEMMA QT 4 Pin Cable (1)

LASER CUTTER MATERIALS:

• Laser Cutter
• 1/8'' Baltic Birch Wood
• Adobe Illustrator

ASSEMBLY MATERIALS:

• Wood Glue
• Tape

I started my project by writing the majority of the code I would need, as seen above.

This step involved cutting out pieces for three main parts. First I cut the base, with a hole in the front for the distance sensor and another on the top to feed parts through. Then I cut the body, using a living hinge to make the body more circular. This piece also had holes in the top and bottom to allow for parts to be moved throughout. Finally, I cut the head, with a hole on the bottom and another on one side for the eventual eye. I glued each part together separately before trying to assemble the entire thing.

This step was mainly finding the parts I wanted to use and getting the wiring right so that everything would fit onto my board. Originally I was using a Circuit Playground Bluefruit for this project, but switched to a Raspberry Pi Pico W for the extra pins.

Finally, I put all the pieces together. I first attached the servo to the body piece using hot glue, and I glued a wooden rod to the servo arm. I glued that arm to the head which left enough space for the head to comfortably move, but not enough space to reveal the parts inside. I also hot-glued the last LED in my strand to the hole on the head of the guardian to use as the eye. I stuffed the rest of the LED strand into the body before hot gluing the body to the top of the base. I placed the rest of the needed parts inside the base, taping the distance sensor to the hole on the front. I never actually attached the top of the base so I could easily access the parts inside. When I was satisfied with how things fit inside, I placed the top on the base, using the finger joints to temporarily snap it into place.