Useless Box Rick and Morty Style Meeseeks

I wanted to make a useless box for quite some time. There are many codes and models available, but I wanted to make something that stands out in terms of looks. Had a Meeseeks doll lying around I wanted to use, so the idea was born to make a Meeseeks useless box. I am no pro in neither programming nor Arduino, so there were some things to be learned along the way. I will try to include all the steps in detail, which took me a while to figure out.

You can download all the files here: https://www.printables.com/model/493200-useless-box-meeseeks-rick-and-morty-style

Necessary:

• Arduino Nano or Clone (from what I read, UNO should be a drop in replacement)
• Some dupont connectors (at least five female-female, one pin) for connecting to Arduino. I recommend getting a set of jumper wires (male-male, female-female, male-female), they come in handy many times: https://www.google.com/search?client=firefox-b-d&q=jumper+wire+set
• Crimping tool for connecting wires (can also be soldered, I always prefer crimping, when possible)
• Heat shrink tube.
• Two micro servos SG90 9G with 180 ° rotation
• Power supply (I use a cheap powerbank, it's the most convenient solution.) Check for dimensions before ordering, so it does fit. Most 5000 - 10000 mAh powerbanks should fit, since there is plenty room at the bottom. I used a 10000 mAh Varta Powerbank which fits just fine. It was running around 1 week with occasional flipping of the switch. So it should also be OK with a 5000 mAh version.
• 3M VHB tape: Either use VHB LSE 110WF or VHB 4952P
• The design is to be glued. I have a bit of a tape fetish and found the two tapes above to be the most versatile in everyday and special use. They are extremely expensive, but you will only need a little since they stick so strong. LSE can be used even for PP. The 4952P also for PP and PE. These are my goto tapes for any permanent longlasting screwless fixing jobs. Can be used for any combination of materials. Make sure to use them right. The tapes are PSA = pressure sensitive adhesives. So sticking force depends only on the applied pressure. For our use case here, very tightly squeezing it between your fingers is enough. Just get the VHB tapes, you will thank me later ;-)
• Should this be too expensive, you can try other tapes or use liquid glue, once everything is set up. I wanted to have the option to disassemble it, if necessary. With the VHB tapes this is possible by cutting through them. You wont be able to directly rip it apart however, since it sticks too well.

Optional:

• Soldering iron, if your Arduino is not presoldered.
• Breadboard is really helpful in initially setting up the Arduino and figuring out if everything works.
• Tape for fixing the dupont connectors to the Arduino, so they don't get loose easily.
• Four strong magnets for fixing the powerbank to the bottom so it does not move around and obstruct anything.
• 2 pin WAGO clamps for making the circuit.

Ideally you have a setup like Bambulab X1C, so you can directly print the box in three colors. Precolored 3mf file is on printables. Alternatively, you could try to edit the files so you can color them via a set layer height and switch colors by hand. Or you can paint them.

Print the head and hand with fuzzy skin.

Print the plates with 0.12 mm layer height, so there will be enough layers to make a nice top surface.

Use 3 perimeters for brackets.

I used PLA NX2 from extrudr.

The Meeseeks Head is printed in blue. I printed the facial features seperately to avoid too much waste. You can glue them on with superglue. Before glueing in the teeth, I took some red nail polish to paint the inside of the mouth red. For the hair, you need to find a position that does not restrict the box lid from closing completely. To get the curvature of the hair fitting to the head, you can just heat the bottom of the hair with a lighter to make it soft. Then quickly put it where it shall be glued later and press firmly. If the bottom of the hair was soft enough, it will deform accordingly.

Parts you need to print:

• every side of the box
• 4 x bracket (they are identical)
• 2 x Hinge left and right (Hinge 1 and Hinge 2 are facing different directions)
• 1 x Servo Mount Hand
• 1 x Servo Mount Lid
• Hand lever
• Lid lever
• Meeseeks Head, teeth, eyes, hair

IMPORTANT: putting the box together in the right sequence will avoid a lot of headaches. There might be different ways that also work. The one I show here was the easiest for me. All parts are designed with a clearance allowing for the 1,1 mm thick VHB tape. Keep that in mind should you want to use a different method of fixing the parts together.

Add VHB tape to all the parts. Once you added them, firmly press on the complete surface of each strip. Take a look at the videos to see more details of this process.

Attaching inside brackets:

Start by setting all box parts together except the lid. Take something sturdy you can put on the sides of the box, so that it will not collapse on itself. Attach the small side walls first, then you can later just tilt the long front and back parts to attach them. Make sure everything is nice and square before putting pressure on the tape. Attach the base plate last. If the parts are not perfectly flush, you can move them slightly, since the VHB tape is quite flexible.

Attaching Servo Mounts:

The lid servo mount is placed touching the back right bracket. The hand servo mount is placed between the two front brackets. There is only very little room between them. This is to make sure each servo is at the correct place. That's the only reason the hand servo mount has these long flat bottom plates. Just more convenient than to measure distances.

Attaching lid:

Attach the lid hinges correctly. There is a left and right facing version. Place the lid on top and make flush. Then glue the hinges on and apply pressure. This is the part that will have to hold the most weight, at least when the lid is open completely. Using the wrong tape here will propably lead to it detaching over time. Shoul you want to use superglue here, you need to adjust the base of the hinge and make it 1.1 mm thicker. Otherwise it will collide with the lid, since the VHB tape has 1.1 mm thickness.

Solder Arduino pin bar should you not have a presoldered version. I have attached a picture showing how the bar is not supposed to look like. It's crooked. For our project here, that does not matter. Should you need to attach a shield connecting both pin bars, it will be important though.

Some of these toggle switches need a little too much force for our servos to move them. Should that be the case, just remove a few windings of the spring inside the toggle switch. For that, first open the switch case. Remove all the parts inside. If the spring does not fall out you can take a needle and pull it out. I removed 3-4 windings. Better not overdo it at first. Just remove 3-4 windings and check if it helped. Removing too many will lead to the spring not being strong enough anymore so that it will not move the inner metal plate anymore thus making it useless.

Take two of your female-female jumper cables and cut them in half. Strip isolator from ends.

Solder two cables to the switch and add heat shrink tube. We need to add a pin connector to the red wire. Either solder it or crimp it together. If you crimp it, make sure to put heat shrink tube over crimp to isolate the connection.

We can reuse the signal cable pin from the servo. Since crimping these would require another crimp tool, we want to avoid doing so. Instead, take a scalpell or similar and remove the pins from their housing. See video. Do the same with a fresh set of female-female jumper wires so you have to 1-pin housings available. The other two cables of each servo will be connected at a later stage via crimping. So cut the pin heads and strip the isolator.

Connect 5 V and GND cables. You can solder or crimp those. Since I have lots of WAGO clamps, I went with crimping. Twist the strands and put crimp over and crimp together. Connect in WAGO clamp. Connect correct pins to Arduino. Wrap some tape around pins on Arduino, so they don't come loose.

Upload Code to Arduino. Should you have a clone, make sure to install drivers before using Arduino IDE. Many systems will not recognise them automatically. Check here: https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/how-to-install-ch340-drivers/all

It all comes down to missing CH340 or CH341 drivers. Google that as necessary.

Should cables be to long, fix them together with some velcro. I have attached some magnets inside the box and on the powerbank, so the powerbank does not move when moving the box. Do that without the cables, so you have enough space inside. Hide cables below powerbank and fix powerbank to bottom magnets. The Arduino nano can be place to the right. Once the cable is connected to Arduino, the space is just enough to put the Arduino there. It will need some force to push it down, but then it will be fixed properly due to the friction of the USB cable on the bracket.

Before attaching servos, attach levers first. Use the screws that come with the servo for that. Make sure the servos are attached at the right angle. For that, you can turn on Arduino, servos will then move to the starting position. At that position, neither hand nor lid lever should touch the lid.

The bottom of the servo will get some VHB tape. Then put each servo in the designated place and apply pressure.

Lastly, glue head inside. Make sure head will not restrict lid movement by touching brackets or lever or powerbank.

Plumbus should fit to the switch lever. If it's too loose, put it over and use a lighter to make it soft. After that, pinch it to make the inside smaller. Make sure not to burn your fingers in the process. Beware that once this is done, you will not get the switch out anymore. Especially if you decide to glue on the plumbus.

Some non genuine servos seem to have different PWM than original ones. For that reason, they will not move the desired angle. Some only move 90 ° when a 180 ° was demanded. I did not have this problem, so the code used does not account for that. Please let me know should you have this problem. It sould be an easy fix.

• Actuallay, turns out I did for the arm servo. This one was not genuine and died rather quickly. Exchanged it for a genuine TowerPro one and needed to change the arm servo angle from 0 to 20 (The high position where it flips the switch). It's in line 68. Please change, should you see your servo trying to move to far. Updated the ino file here, just in case.

Should you need to remove some of the tape again, there is an easy way to do so. Don't try to rip it apart, it is just too strong. Instead cut through it. See video.

If you have the feeling the powerbank is drained rather quickly, check whether the servos are restricted in movement. If they need to keep a position, they will take energy to do so. If you have the option to measure: The idle current should be well below 100 mA. Once they servos move, they will take up around 300-800 mA. So a 10.000 mAh powerbank sould work for several days.