FLAP . O . TRON

Team Project: Baba and Piyanat

The first in a series of USELESS machines, we bring you the FLAP O TRON. It does nothing more than flap.

The basic idea of this project is to create a means of learning electronic actuation based on sensory input.

The ultimate goal is to have the FLAP O TRON become increasingly agitated as a person or object approaches (see embedded video).

Basic understanding of electronic prototyping such as you have with platforms such as Arduino is necessary to complete this creation, as well as some crafting skills.

Things you need :

Firstly, prepare the parts for the construction of the FLAP O TRON. Refer to the part list image for dimensions and other details.

Materials:

Plastic Sheet (0.75mm Polystyrol is used in our demonstrator)

Plastic Tube (3mm diameter)

Toothpicks/Wooden Sticks (> 2mm diameter)

Tools needed:

Cutter

Cutting Mat

Ruler

Sooooooper Glue (1 sec reaction time)

Hardware Required :

Servo Motor (SG90)

Ultrasonic Sensor

Breadboard

Controller Board

Jump Wires

100uF Capacitor

Software Required:

Arduino IDE

Virtues Required:

Patience (a lot of it)

Once you have all of these (especially the patience bit), you can start making the mechanical core as shown in Step 1.

Step 1: MECHANICAL CORE

To begin, the creation of the FLAP O TRON, the mechanical core is crucial. It includes one panel with a flappy door installed the quick return arm, the servo and some optional support for it as well as the servo arm attachment which slots into the quick return arm that is attached to the main flappy door.

The image shows what you're generally aiming for. You may need to refer to later steps for details on how to make the flappy doors, the servo supports, and the general mechanical schematic.

Step 2: SERVO SUPPORT

In order to have the servo motor interacting with the mechanical core as required, it needs to be placed at a certain height relative to the quick return arm on the flappy door. To do this, you can make a little cradle to support the servo and allow passage of its cables. This is why there is a little rectangular hole shown on the largest panel on the part list (use it for this!!!).

Step 3: FLAPPY DOORS

And now for the main attraction(s), these will have to be created 4 times for each side of the FLAP O TRON.

Here, make use of the 11.5 x 6.5 cm panels, the larger 22.0 x 7.5 cm panels, toothpicks/wooden sticks and the little 5.0 x 0.5 cm strips.

Make sure to refer to the attached image as a guide for the general arrangement of these parts.

Step 4: FLAPPY PIVOTS

These little guys are what transfer the servo/quick return movement to the other flappy doors.

For these, you'll need the 0.3mm plastic tube, the small base tabs and triangular supports.

The image says it all!

Step 5: LONG LINKAGE

So now you have the core and the frame of the FLAP O TRON built(4 sides with flappy doors, pivots, a base and your servo). You now need to link your unconnected flappy doors to the mechanical core. It should look something like the mechanical schematic given.

The first one to go in will be the LONG linkage connecting the rear flappy door. see picture, its pretty sweet.

Step 6: SHORT LINKAGE

And then the baby linkages go in connecting the adjacent flappy doors.

When you look from on high upon thy creation, it should be a spitting image of the images shown.

Step 7: CIRCUIT SCHEMATIC & ELECTRONICS SETUP

Now the mechanics and overall construction have been completed. Its time to build your circuit, and programme it. With some basic understanding of electronic the images attached should suffice, but for convenience, the steps are spelled out in very fine detail below:

For the ultrasonic sensor (VCC, TRIG, ECHO, GND)

Plug the VCC wire into the 5V supply on the breadboard

Plug the TRIG wire into pin 10

Plug the ECHO wire into pin 9

Plug the GND wire into the GND

For the Servo Motor

Plug the brown wire into the GND

Plug the red wire into the 5V supply on the breadboard

Plug the yellow wire into pin 8

Step 8: ARDUINO IDE SKETCH

Now to get the full unadulterated FLAP O TRON experience, you have to get your ultrasonic sensor communicating with your servo motor via your controller board. The code used is available for download.

If you like, you can tweak the behaviour of your FLAP O TRON by tweaking some of the parameters of the code within the Arduino IDE environment.

Verify and upload the sketch to the controller board, and then the true magic begins...