#animatronic puppet

In the movie Child's Play, it took 11 different people to control the animatronic puppet Chucky, with a different person handling each part of his body from his legs to his eyebrows. – WTF Fun Facts

Mothra | Ishirô Honda | 1961

07.16.18

Well, here we are again. It's always such a pleasure... Seriously though, I am super excited to post this update:

Wheatley is functionally finished!

It has taken a lot of effort to get him to this point, but it's totally worth it. Let me catch you up on what has happened since the last update:

The spare Handle parts I had to use were primed and painted. I had to devise another way of connecting the two sides of each Handle, so I found some small neodymium magnets and glued them in. I also put some bits of flexible plastic sheet around the ends of the Handles to give the pieces a channel to sit in and to help them stay aligned. It works very nicely.

The JB Weld failed fantastically. Turns out it has great compression strength but breaks easily with twisting motion. I went back to the drawing board and decided to drill out the Handle Mounts from the back and put screws through the opening. This worked, for the most part. I did end up rebuilding a few spots due to my carelessness in drilling. Aside from that, the Handles now function fully and I don't have to worry about them falling off!

I also extended the wiring on from the switches on the Sides, to make it easier to put the Sides onto his body. After I finished this, I noticed that one of the Handle connections had a large gap between the Side and the Handle, so I 3D printed a small spacer and glued it in place. After that, I ran out of things to do!

In the coming days my artist friend and I will be working on getting his paint job finished. We'll also be finishing the Aperture Science Personalized Personality Core Carrier we started a few weeks back, that way we can tote Wheatley around in style!

Stay tuned for the final update and the big reveal video!

Good News/Bad News

I had assumed that there wouldn’t be another update between the last one and the finished Wheatley, but as you know: things happen.

The good news is that Wheatley’s paint job is finished! He looks simply amazing! I am very blessed to have such a talented artist friend who was willing to paint Wheatley. There were several aspects of his design that were a challenge for her to paint but she figured it out, and it shows. When you see it you’ll know what I mean!

The bad news is that one of Wheatley’s handle servos is fried. I was adjusting his code, had my friend plug the servo in, and she plugged it in backwards. When we turned it on it fried the servo. Luckily the servo it fried was the easiest of the four to replace. After ripping the old servo out of the handle piece, I made a mad dash to Radioshack today and bought another servo. It is now mounted and the Apoxie Sculpt is curing (man I love that stuff!). It’ll get painted tomorrow and reinstalled.

It’s so nice to be at the end of a wonderful project. I’m planning on taking a break from building robots and other complicated things for a while. While I’ve been waiting for Wheatley’s paint job I have been printing pieces to make my own Portal Gun. The last part will be done tomorrow as well and I’m excited about it!

Keep watching for the final reveal this week!

06.26.18

More problems and solutions, but I’m one step closer to being finished! I assembled and tested the Handles before I glued them. It’s a good thing I did: The Arduino was unable to keep accurate position for all four of the handle servos at the same time. This caused the Handles to twist and potentially break whenever they moved. The parts were also too far away from each other to connect properly.

I had to buy 2 new servos, reverse them, and put them into spare Handle parts I had from previous prints. This allowed me to consolidate the wiring and code for the Handle servos, going from 4 signal lines to 2. Because each pair of servos get the same signal and move together, the handles now move in sync and without issue.

I took this opportunity to glue the longer handle pieces to the shells. I used JB Weld to provide the best hold possible, but I’ll still have to be extremely careful. Like I’ve mentioned earlier, Wheatley’s Handles are the most fragile part of him!

The next step is to finish the new Handle pieces, paint them, and install them. After some quick code adjustments, the main body paint job, and finishing touches, Wheatley will be finished! Hooray!

05.09.18

It's time for another update! I was able to work on a few things this week. Here's a summary of everything I did:

I worked on the handles and got them to work for the most part. The first picture shows what Wheatley looks like with his Sides and Handles in place. The servos in the Handles work, but they are a bit noisy. It's a small price to pay to have his Handles move. However, if I ever do another core like this I am NOT making it's Handles move; it's way too much work and stress. The points where the Handles connect to the Sides are the weakest part of the whole project, and the parts I worry about most.

I also got the rest of the parts sanded, primed, and painted their basecoat! Everything came out quite nicely, as the rest of the pictures show. Of course, they'll look even better after my artist neighbor is finished with them. Again, I am extremely grateful that she is as excited to paint Wheatley as I am to make him! I don't know what I'd do without her.

I still have some work to do on the wiring inside of Wheatley. Mostly, I have to figure out how to fit everything in the space I have to work with and not impede his movement.

I had been planning on using Velcro to secure his sides onto his body, but I realized this past week that it's not going to work like I thought. The plan now is to use earth magnets on the inside lip of the body, and either strips of sheet metal or more magnets on the inside of the Sides. I'm confident it'll work, but I know it's going to be somewhat of a pain to implement.

I'm very excited to be making all of this progress on Wheatley! At this rate, he'll be done by the end of the month!

05.17.18

Wheatley is getting closer and closer to being completed! Here's what's happened since the last update:

All of his internal wiring is finished and secured. I managed to position everything so that it doesn't interfere with his motion!

The Sides and Handles are currently being painted by my artist neighbor. She's mostly done with the Handles and has started on the Sides. Even though they aren't complete yet, they're looking fabulous!

As for holding the Sides on, I actually found some super-thin yet quite strong Velcro. It works very well. Each side is held on by only 2 strips, yet I have to struggle a bit to get them off. I'm really happy about that!

Once my neighbor is done painting those pieces, all that's left to do is put the on/off switches on, add some cosmetic details, adjust the code for the Handle movement, and finish the paint job on his body! I'm so excited!

I'm also working on the Aperture Science Personalized Personality Core Carrier to carry Wheatley around with. It's basically a baby carrier for a Personality Core. Wheatley weighs 6-10lbs so it'll be nice to not have to carry that around Comic Con the whole time! Stay tuned for more updates!

Walking with Snaps - Find out about our life-sized, lifelike dinosaur costume we’re creating for the special exhibit Expedition Alaska: Dinosaurs. And follow our blog as we get ready for the opening Summer 2015.