Ironman Animatronics

The description of the animatronics project would best be suited as a marvel hero, ironman's helmet. As it pertains to the appearance, the most distinguishable or recognizable feature of ironman was its mask and chin. These were then attached to the supporting structure. And the chin will move when the ultrasonic sensor is triggered. The other recognizable and moveable features is the hand which is controlled by the joystick. These two moving parts are both controlled by servo motors, which are connected to the Arduino.

In order to make the animatronics more real and cool. We use 3D printing technique to make the whole helmet with FDM. Also to make the chin movable, we decided to use tissue box as the base because it's easy to obtain and a good container to put the breadboard and Arduino. We used electric drill to drill holes. Then using metal wires connect the helmet, mask and chin.

For the project, there were two non-fixed structures, chin and hand. The mouth was constructed so the jaw would move when attached to the motor. It was attached to the structure with wire which also gave it the flexibility to move. When we trigger the ultrasonic sensor the chin is able to move and say 'I'm ironman'. At the mean time, the LEDs act as the eye will shin. The other joint was the hand which were chosen because the mask is too heavy to make it movable. The servo motors were an obvious choice due to how friendly they are with Arduino. For the hand, we used a wire to connect it to the motor so when the motor would rotate when we push the joystick.

We had chosen two different sensors for the project: ultrasonic and joystick. The ultrasonic was attached to the top of the tissue box and the other was controlled by human hands. We chose the ultrasonic sensor because we wanted the animatronic to activate when someone would pass by it or anything block the signal of the sensor. The sensor was programed to activate when someone would be at 10-20 centimeters away from the project. Anything further would not be registered by the sensor and the chin would continue to remain still. We intended to use joystick to control the mask, but the mask is too heavy so we just attached a hand by the tissue box and make it rotatable.

Servo motor 1 circuit:

myServo1 - 9

Servo motor 2 circuit:

myServo2 - 10

Ultrasonic sensor circuit:

Trig - 11

Echo - 6

Joystick:

Vrx - A0;

Vry - A1;

DFplayer circuit:

static const uint8_t PIN_MP3_TX = 3;

static const uint8_t PIN_MP3_RX = 4;

LEDPin - 2

Resistors:

220 Ohm

All 5v to 5v in Arduino;

All GND to GND in Arduino.

Video link:  https://youtu.be/cDXyRJnTTBc

1. From this project, we learned how to properly attach motors and sensors to the breadboard.

3. Something that could have been improved was communication between the group. It was difficult to get everyone together and be on the same page for the code and structure of the project.

4. Another thing to improve on was the simplification of the code. It was longer than needed but regardless got the job done.

5. We learned that even though tissue box was a cheap option to use, it was not the best. It was flimsy and easy to distort when damaged.

6. An issue we ran into was placing the motor. We couldn't attach the motors prematurely to the face without a way to take it off so we attached them to the tissue box.

7. One difficult issue was the accuracy of the position of the chin. Because we used metal wires to connect all the parts.

9. Another issue was where to put all the wires and motors on the face and keep them hidden. To resolve this most of the items were placed behind the main face and another box will be used to put the breadboard and other things.

10. We learned how important the placement of the wires on a breadboard is. A lot of the issues we would run into would be invalid wires placements that would impede either the code getting to a sensor or motor or having the power and ground not correct.

11. One thing that could have been improved was how realistic the project was. If we can make the mask move, this animatronics will be more cool.

12. One issue we ran into was having the audio play with the mouth when told to do so. And we had solves this problem finally.