Robotics Projects

Glamour girl is my pride and joy, my ride or die, my parter in crime and next of kin. I started this project when I, unfortunately, had to differ my degree for a year and spend some time receiving chemotherapy. The national lockdown coincided with this break from my studies, and provided the perfect conditions to pour my free time into an unproductive project.

I’d been playing with the idea of starting a robotics project for some time, and took the chance to pursue it. The theme however, took a while to land on.

Most Sci-Fi would have the future of robotics appear as elegant, eleven, machinations, suited to meet our every need with grace and simplicity. I much preferred to take inspiration from more eldritch sources, Warhammer 40K in particular. This grim dark future proved the perfect setting for my imagination.

While I am very likely now on a Government watchlist for my interest in improvised remote weapons, I feel this is a small price to pay for the joy that completing this project has brought me.

Glamour Girl Mk I

Mk 1 was a steep learning experience. I had ample experience in the CAD and mechanical side of the project, and these aspects were completed quicker than the others.

I used the free, hobbyist, version of Fusion 360 to complete the CAD modelling for the project. Then utilised Cura 3D printing software to generate the G-Code for my Ender 3 Pro FDM 3D Printer. The printer was vital for the fast prototyping of chassis/servo mechnisms as the set of calipers I owned were on the cheaper/less accurate side of ISO 9001.

As you can see in the images to the right, MK I was a fast and furious prototype. In the end though, she was neither fast nor furious. The additional weight I had added to the RC Car proved too great for the speedy trickster, and it struggled to get moving at all. Additionally, the plastic Servo motors I had used for the Flamethrower feature were not strong enough to reliably activate the deodorant can and Jet lighter.

This was a bit of a hit to the project to be honest, and I felt pretty de-motivated. However, I decided to look at the positives, the harder stuff (Power and Bluetooth) was complete, and I could take those learnings into a new iteration.

Where I learned the most was in the Electrical aspects of the project. In total, I believe I bricked 3 arduino boards, 5 servo motors and even popped a 250mAh battery scavenged from a disposable vape. My nose quickly learned to recognise the signature smell of the magic smoke that is stored inside electrical components. After an eye watering sum of money was then sent to Mr Bazos for his space program, I learned from my mistakes and eventually figured out you’re supposed to keep the smoke inside the components.

The arduino libraries/syntax, fortunately, was not as steep a learning curve. I found them similar enough to python that the knowledge I had there was transferable. I will, however, say that the troubleshooting for the Bluetooth connection between the controller and RC car was a challenging endeavour, purely for the amount of variables that could affect functionality. I found that, in the end, I had to buy a power dampener. The frequency of the power supply from the batteries themselves were causing interference in the antenna I had installed. Once I had overcome this problem though, the rest quickly fell into place.

Glamour Girl Mk II

This is where MKII enters the scene. I took to the loft and dug out a more powerful, off road, RC car and began work on modelling a new chassis. I also got my hands on stronger, metal geared, Servos.

After a quick iteration turnaround. MK II was ready to go! I decided to implement a small safety feature to reduce the risk of the flame travelling back into the fuel canister and limited the spray time to a maximum of 2 seconds.

I was overjoyed. I had seen my vision to its end and was pleased to start scaring my mates and family alike.

Glamour Girl Mk III

After a long hiatus, getting busy finishing my degree and working a 9 – 5 job. I decided it was time to work on a third iteration of Glamour Girl. I knew I wanted to push the limits of my technical ability so I outlined an improvement plan and started drawing up concept sketches.

Seen in the images to the right, I played around with a lot of different ideas. I knew I wanted to keep the body horror vibe going, but I wanted to add more of an unsettling vibe. Eventually I settled on the concept seen here.

I plan on building a hexa-pedal walking platform from scratch. I knew from my interest in the field, I’d need to wrap my head around Inverse kinematics if I wanted the legs to perform at the level I was after. I also knew I’d need to do my research into path planning for said legs.

So far, I’ve designed/built a prototype chassis and am currently working on implementing what I’ve learnt on IK into one of the legs to develop a walking cycle. Check in at later dates for progress on how this is going.