Headless Robot With Moving Arms

The following instructables is inspired from the Halloween Headless bot. You can find the full instruction on how to make the bot from cardboard here.

To make it more alive I have an idea to make the arm that are holding the head to move.

Supplies

For that we will need the following:

- Arduino UNO (any arduino will do), but I have one lying around.

- Servo and arm

- LEDs for the eyes (want to make it more alive and have some blinking lights)

- paper clip

- acto knife to cut out some openings.

The Circuit

The servo is connected to pin 9. The LEDS are connected common anode to the VCC. The other 2 cathode legs are connected to A1 and A2 respectively.

Complete Your Bot and Make Sure Everything Are Fitted Especially the Body and the Head

Make sure you follow the build of the Halloween Headless Robot Papercraft.

Then Surgically cut out the holes to fit your arduino. I have an Uno lying around and it fit perfectly with the large version of the template. So I cut out the side to expose the USB port and the power.

Servo and Left Arm

Next cut out the left part of the body to fit the servo. Note that you shouldn't cut out the original slot as this is no longer needed because we are going to attach the servo to the arm.

Next poke two tiny holes to fit the servo arm to the robot arm.

Head and Eyes

I want to have some blinking eyes, so this step is necessary. Poke 2 hole to fit the LEDs to the eye socket. I connected the common anode of both LED with a resistor so all together I have 3 cables running from the head to the arm opening for the servo.

The common anode is connected to the +5V. and the other two LED cathode is connected to A1 and A2, but you can use any pins technically.

Test the Moving Arm

Test the moving arm before attaching it. You can upload the code here to test the servo. I move the arm 60 degree angle to avoid the head bumping to the side of the body. You might have to tilt the arm a little bit because by design the head will bump to the body if the servo goes more than 60 degree below.

Put It All Together

Fit everything together in the box and plug the power in and enjoy the bot.

Thanks for reading through this part, I hope you enjoy it as much as I do. I have a lot of fun building this with the kids.