Developing An Animatronics Platform

This Predator costume has an animatronic element in the shoulder cannon. It tracks the movement of the mask, aiming wherever the Predator gazes. [Jerome Kelty] was asked by a friend to help develop the costume and he ended up with an animatronics platform which can be adapted for many different uses.

Starting with an Arduino Pro Mini [Jerome] designed a host board which would breakout the pins of the Arduino and make it easy to connect and drive multiple servo motors. The board is powered by a 3.3v Lithium Polymer battery with charging handled by a MAX1555 that was included in the design. Check out the video after the break which shows off the Predator suit. Looks like [Jerome] got it right, and he’s also put the platform to use with an Ironman suit that has an arm-mounted missle feature.

Need some inspiration for you next costume build? Take a look at this animatronic collection to get you started.

[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tYScDwP3v8w&w=470]

10 thoughts on “Developing An Animatronics Platform

  1. Most of the wires you see are long servo cables. There’s only a few wires that go to the Bio helmet and they are hidden inside the three cables that connect the Bio to the backpack- just like in the first film. The three cables unplug from the Bio so you can take it off.

    All of the electronics go in the backpack.

  2. I don’t know if this should be categorized as animatronics so much as it should a wearable head-tracking turret system.

    Regardless, it makes me want to build one that force-feeds glow-in-the-dark paintballs from below, and uses less Arduino.

  3. Great work Jerome! Arduinos are so versatile! Great for costumes and things as found on http://www.405th.com.

    Of course its animatronics! Just not in regards to a puppet, its for the turret. And wires are unfortunately always a problem due to the number of motors and servos etc. You just have to be creative in hiding and running the wire bundles.

    Speaking of lots of wires, here is something ive worked on recently:
    http://www.makehackvoid.com/member-projects/arduino-controlled-robotic-hand

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