Wall-E Robot

Intro: Wall-E Robot

This is my Wall-E project that I am currently working on it is 150mm x 150mm x 160 high, it uses a pair of Mattracks http://www.litefootatv.com/html/litefoot_in_the_news.htm for motive power and two robosapienV2 hip motors. It will be controlled by a BS2P40 stamp CPU and will have the following functions described below.

I build robots quite prolific but my let down is programing "hopeless but learning" I have a friend at http://www.robocommunity.com who is programing it for me, From this I hope to learn how this program is put together and eventually program myself. We are in the progress of designing the H-bridge for the motors using the L298 chip, The head is finished apart from his adorable eyebrows which http://www.musclewires.com/shapememoryalloys.shtml wire or Muscle flex and pan/tilt has been run.

The main reason for building this project was to see if I could use parts from my stock of components that I have lying around my basement and electronics room, The only thing so far that I have had to buy is the Mattracks , uOLED screen and L298 H-bridge ic. Which GWJax is sending me. I was inspired to build this project after seeing a Pixar demo video and thought WOW what a neat bot to build.

I have been in R/C scale and other unorthodox aircraft for over 30yrs and modeling is my passion, so this comes in handy when creating something like Wall-E. I hope you like how it is coming along. I would also like to add that GWJax has been an inspiration to me on the programming side.The main construction of Wall-E is 5mm lite ply, sides,front,back and top, with 2mm balsa cladding on the sides with some 1.5mm ply to form the raised panels. Rivets were made using PVA glue watered down 40% and applied to the required area's with a sharp pointed rod, One dip will give you 3 rivets. The arms were constructed out of 1.5mm ply and balsa, and uses 4 of my Technics air rams back to back, The fingers were modded Technics angle beams covered in 1mm ply for the sides and balsa top and bottom.

The base is constructed out of 5mm Acrylic sheet as this is good for boring holes to mount your fittings. the head H'mmm a real challenge here, I had to draw it out first to get the pear shaped eye right then work from there. The main eye tube was a pair of alloy pill containers which worked out to be the right size for the head. The Blue LEDs x 6, 3 in each eye are mounted on a 5mm acrylic disc and inserted in the tube about 2/3rds down, then another Acrylic disc in front with the ping sonar in each eye.The ping sonar is from TX and RX had to be removed from the board [tricky and an extension lead [screened] run from the board to the Tx and RX in each eye. I was not sure at the time if this would alter the characteristics of the range, but after testing this was unfounded.

The eyes light up at present using a circuit which has a CDS cell and when you switch the lights of the eyes come on, GWJax may code this to work also with some other functions on Wall-E.Wall-E was finished with off the shelf spraykote enamel cans, grey primer, followed by antirust primer, then layered with yellow, rivets applied, then sliver over the rivet area, followed by an airbrushed rust over the rivets. The whole body was then rubbed with scotchbrite pads until the rust and some silver was showing through, then airbrushed with a mix of satin varnish and grey primer to give Wall-E that weathered effect.The head was done in a similar way but with different colors. Phew, I think that's it guys. Check out my web site.
http://robosapienv2-4mem8.page.tl/ Robotic Madness

1. Use my Mattracks as the main drive unit
2. Motor drive gear motors using H bridge controllers
3. Pan/tilt head using Parallax ultra sonic ping
4. 3 GP2D12 IR edge detectors or similar detectors
5. raise and lower the arms as a pair [up and down only]
6. raise and lower the front door
7. [Maybe not sure yet] raise and lower the head
8.Use Parallax ping in both eyes
9. airbrush Wall-E to look authentic as possible.
10. Fit a uOLED in the front panel
11. Use a Parallax emic text to speech chip for wall-e's voice
12. Fit Ultra bright blue LEDs in Wall-E's eyes
13. Make a pair of H bridges for the drive motors
14. solar cell to charge batteries
15. voice changer circuit for Emic text to speech
16. Speaker

STEP 1: Gear Motors

RobosapienV2 Hip motors with bevel hex gear.

STEP 2:

Hex shafts fitted to motor

STEP 3:

STEP 4:

STEP 5:

Motors fitted to Mattracks

STEP 6:

Motors fitted to acrylic base

STEP 7:

Alloy brackets fitted to acrylic base

STEP 8:

5mm lite ply base and sides

STEP 9:

Front and back ply added

STEP 10:

Extra side panels from 1.5mm ply, uOLED in front panel

STEP 11:

STEP 12:

Solar led recharge panel right

STEP 13:

Front panels now in place

STEP 14:

Laminated side panels 1.5mm ply

STEP 15:

Technics LEGO rams for the arms, glued back to back

STEP 16:

1.5mm ply box to cover the rams

STEP 17:

Various layers to represent the metal panels

STEP 18:

Side panels now glued in place

STEP 19:

Arms in place

STEP 20:

Door and grippers now in place

STEP 21:

This is the eye section, four 1.5mm ply formers

STEP 22:

Two alloy pill containers and formers

STEP 23:

Ply formers glued in place on the alloy containers

STEP 24:

Formers now covered in balsa, and back sections added

STEP 25:

More balsa added to the rear

STEP 26:

Neck section made out of 1.5mm ply

STEP 27:

Internal formers to accommodate servos

STEP 28:

Ply box joined together and 1.5 mm balsa glued around the edges

STEP 29:

Balsa detail added to the neck

STEP 30:

Pan/tilt servos head and neck ready for assembly

STEP 31:

Neck added to the head via pan servo

STEP 32:

Tilt servo added at the base

STEP 33:

All parts ready to put together

STEP 34:

Main body primed ready for painting

STEP 35:

2nd stage of priming, rust brown

STEP 36:

Rivet detail is watered down PVA glue 40% and applied by a sharp nail

STEP 37:

Gripper detail, 3rd stage silver applied

STEP 38:

Silver applied over rivet detail

STEP 39:

A lot of detail is now coming together, 4th coat yellow applied and weathering starting to take place

STEP 40:

Rams at rear, and weathering taking place, using scotch brite pads.

STEP 41:

Arm detail now added, and front door, more weathering also done

STEP 42:

Wiring for the 6 LED blue lights in his eyes

STEP 43:

Internal discs for the eyes, these are inserted in the alloy tubes and house the LEDS, front rings are for the Ping sonar

STEP 44:

Wiring the LEDS

STEP 45:

Wiring loom and ping sonar now installed

STEP 46:

Weathered detail of Wall-E and ping sonar eyes

STEP 47:

Head/neck attached to body

STEP 48:

almost finished Wall-E

STEP 49:

Here's looking at you

STEP 50:

Wall-E's eyes lit up

Comments

[vaibhavp60]

where i get or buy mettrack

[NealKipper]

This is terrific! I love Wall-E!

[makesomeso]

nice project. i love this robot. can wall e program with arduino??

[sarathkumar]

How much money I make is a robot.
Think how the robot is capable of speaking skills
Please tell me sir
Teach me the way sir

[Anthony312]

what you could do is place some cameras in the eyes so u can see what wall-e sees.

[4mem8]

Anthony312: i could have and that would have been cool, BUT, I decided to insert Ping ultra sonic sensors instead as I though collision avoidance would be better option. Thanks for you interest.

[Anthony312]

ok i can understand that. But i saw these cool cameras that would fit in wall-e's eyes and still leave room for motors and wires and stuff. they're only 0.3 in. by 0.3 in. by 0.4 in. And when i watched some wall-e videos closely, i found out that the lense part of wall-e is hollow, which means it can be use for zoom and focus. this also helps when wall-e has to turn into a cube.

[4mem8]

That would be cool also, but I had no room left after installing the Blue LEDs and ping sensors.

[Anthony312]

oh...ok then. but im going to build my own wall-e robot, and im going to use cameras (and if there's room ill even do that LED and sensor thing like you did) and it will have one special feature that no other wall-e robot (that ive seen so far) has ... it can turn into a cube!

[Anthony312]

though im working on how he would be able to compact trash (thats for later).

[CapnTac]

I hope you put up an instructable for it! Good luck making him roll up into a cube, that seems really hard. For the trash compacter thing, simply put metal squares on pistons inside of him, then when you put the trash inside of him, you could activate the pistons, and he would compact the garbage. Just a brainstorm.

[4mem8]

CapnTac: It will be harder than he thinks, With all my electronics,motors,servos and batteries you could not fit a fly in there.

[Anthony312]

I know exactly how hard this build is going to be. I am well aware of the space effiency of wall-e too. The reason you have no room is the size of your motors and servos and maybe even the electronics. They make smaller motors you know. and why do u need that huge gearbox attached to your motors when you can just connect the motor directly to the mattracks without the gears. and you can use a smaller recorder for wall-e's speach. When i examined wall-e the eyes only take about as much room as the bottom of the solar charge level screen up, and the tracks take as much room as the hollow trash compactor inside wall-e, which happens to start from the bottom of the solar charge level screen down. And his eyes are not as wide as the entire of wall-e itself, as a matter of fact it is 2 wall-e arm widths smaller. so as far as i can tell, wall-e turning in and out of a cube is plausable. There is even room for the solar pannels (they can replace the battery if you charge up long enough) and one or two small microchips fit (you can use 1 for speech and 1 for charge-up panal).

[GWJax]

WoW I just read all your comments, I am working side buy side with 4mem8 on this project as he has built him and I'm doing the programming for it. Just a little FYI for you, there is alot more to this than just adding a few micro chips. plus 4mem8 had used those gearbox motors for torque issues being that the Wall-E is not that light. Even if we use SMD's to make all our boards there still will not be enough room to box him up. CGA is a great thing to play with but in real life the physic just arn't there for that to happen. But I hope you do find a way to make it as I will be looking out for a wall-e that can move around it surondings and then box its self up. Good Luck Jax

[4mem8]

Anthony312. You have to realize one thing that is stated in the opening section on Wall-E, This robot has a criteria, And that is he had to be made with minimum bought parts, That is anything I could find around my basement, the only things I had to buy were the Mattracks, Lm 298 motor controller, some fast recovery diode's the rest I had around my workshop. Yes I could have bought SM boards and made it smaller, You cannot emit the gearbox's it would not work, You have to have torque to move this sucker. One of the reason's it won first place here and first place on Trossen robotics probably was due to the fact that it was basicaly home made and NOT from of the shelf parts. GWJax Thank you for chiming in here to explain to Anthony 312 the process of Wall-E.

[GWJax]

no problem 4mem8 I hope he does make one that will box up, I guess if you enlarge it enough you might beable to do this but the tracks must also reform them selfs. A very hard project even for the best. Jax

[Anthony312]

I know about the reforming tracks problem too. My prototype wall-e that I'm working on right now is too small to reform its tracks so they're going to be cubed in the way they are instead of changing its shape. on the larger wall-e I hope to make the tracks able to reform when going into cube form.

[Luna!]

jezzz christ... you remind me of my ex..

just congrat the man!!!!

[Anthony312]

I'm sorry. Congradulations on the Wall-E Robot!!!

[GWJax]

Anthony312 Keep us up to date with your progress, I know your protype will probly not have any electronics on it which is fine, But at least you can see that retraction of the tracks are needed and if you keep your wall-e light enough you may not need the gearbox motor, I would use a standard servo for the drive system in this case. Just remember to keep it as light as possable. When you get it right you'll have to enlarge the Wall-E 2 to 3 time the size of 4mem8's wall-e just to get everything inside. Good luck and I hope to see you get it done. Jax