As time grew close to Maker Faire, we had to sharpen / tighten our goals. We always try to improve some part of our projects and change things up. This year, we worked on the more “cosplay” elements and left the more electronic and technical aspects largely alone.
- ED-E Companion Robot
- Dexter built an entirely new body for ED-E from a milk jug, 3D printed parts, foam mats, and model magic. In retrospect, an HDPE milk jug is so smooth and adhesive resistant that it may not have been the best choice. The paint flaked off in some small places and the 3D printed internal structures didn’t stay in place as desired, but everything held together quite well over the course of the entire weekend.
- ED-E used to be built into a small 3D printed enclosure, about the size of a baseball, which was limiting for power supply and other mechanical abilities. This year we mounted him on a PVC pipe, but quickly learned the end needed to be padded otherwise the constant shock of hitting the ground would slowly scramble his brains.
- I think an entirely 3D printed case is very doable for next year, would take pain much better, permit easier access to his brain, better placement for LED’s and a speaker. He would probably benefit from using separate ESP32’s for the brain and the PIP-Boy to communicate wirelessly, so that the robot could be easily untethered from the arm.
- Another issue with the robot was simply carrying the thing over the day. The robot and PVC aren’t that heavy, but over time lugging it around, even using it as a walking stick takes its toll. The temporary fix at Maker Faire was to tape a bunch of foam to the bottom of the PVC pipe. One possible fix would be to design a TPU cap to go over the bottom of the pipe, to cushion the impact of the pipe on the ground – and help reduce the impact on the robot components. One idea is to add a wheel or caster to the base and another idea would be to put the whole robot on an IV pole. Putting the pole on a single caster/wheel could be problematic if we needed to set the robot down – unless the wheel had a retractable kickstand or retractable wheel. An IV pole might work well, but sourcing one might be an issue. 1
- Vault Dweller
- I pivoted my project from being solely about a shoulder mounted robot to being more of a “vault dweller with companion robot.” I designed our PIP-Boys from the ground up, making several changes from other designs out there for aesthetic and practical reasons, while keeping the essential look. Although I didn’t get around to adding yellow accents to my blue jumpsuit, I was recognized throughout Maker Faire and called out as a “vault dweller” probably due to the icon combination of the jumpsuit and PIP-Boy.
- My PIP-Boy included the e-ink display I had originally purchased for use in a kind of digital to-do list, but disconnected from a microcontroller. I’m looking forward to building in additional features to the device, adding a power supply, microcontroller, buttons, and lights to bring it to life.
- I normally take a sling backpack with me when I’m out for a day trip or running some errands. However, after the first two days I skipped it entirely since my jumpsuit had ample pockets and storage. The various vault suits out there don’t seem to include pockets, but that’s just silly. Ideally, for aesthetics the vault suit would feature some leather / faux leather (possibly weathered craft foam) pads at the elbows and knees as well as a brown / dark brown leather belt with pockets / pouches for stuff.
I’d really like to get a working set of buttons and microcontroller working in my PIP-Boy to be able to change the display. There’s probably room in the PIP-Boy for a battery pack, some wires going to various LED’s2 , possibly a small servo, potentially a little laser3 , and maybe a little spring loaded projectile launcher.
I couldn’t be happier with how the PIP-Boys turned out. My 3D designs really came together. The cuff parts were just craft foam / floor mats and fit reasonably well. They had a tendency to slip or rotate on the arms a little, but not to a problematic extent. The 3D printed parts stayed affixed to the painted foam cuffs well enough. Both were instantly recognizable as PIP-Boys by lots of people. I think with some sanding, wet sanding, and a blast from a heat gun, they’d look even better. I’m really looking forward to sprucing these up.
- I don’t mind paying ~$10 for a used one, but not interested in picking up a brand new one for $40-400. I did find one on Craigslist, but the seller hasn’t replied after several hours. After this afternoon, I’ll be a lot less immediately interested since we probably won’t be suiting up again for another year. [↩]
- I have a great spot for the 5mm NeoPixels I bought years ago [↩]
- Because, why not!?! [↩]