At first glance, this little animatronic mouse might seem like a fairly simple affair. A door opens, our rodent friend pops its head out, looks around, and goes back in. But just like in The Wizard of Oz, a strategically placed curtain is hiding the impressive array of gadgetry that makes the trick possible.
Creator [Will Donaldson] has put together a fantastic write-up of just what went into creating this little fellow, and we think you’ll be surprised at just how serious the mechanics involved are. Take for example the rig that provides horizontal motion with a NEMA 17 stepper motor mated to a 200 mm leadscrew and dual 8 mm rail assembly that would like right at home as part of a 3D printer.
The star of the show rides atop a beefy sliding carriage assembly made of printed components and acrylic, which is linked to the door via a GT2 timing belt and pulley in such a way that it automatically opens and closes at the appropriate time. To inject some life into the puppet, [Will] stuffed it with a pair of SG90 servos in a sort of pan-and-tilt arrangement: the rear servo turns the mouse’s body left and right, while the forward one moves the head up and down.
An Arduino Uno controls the servos, as well as the stepper motor by way of a TB6600 controller, and optical limit switches are used to make sure nothing moves out bounds. [Will] is keeping the CAD files and source code to himself for the time being, though we imagine a sufficiently dedicated mouseketeer could recreate the installation based on the available information.
This would appear to be the first animatronic mouse to grace the pages of Hackaday, but we’re certainly no strangers to seeing folks imbue inanimate objects with lifelike motion.
Topo Gigo
Since when can mice fly? Would look better if the “mouse” was lower to the ground.
I was asking myself the same question while listening at the video.
Why designing such a sophisticated mechanism and having the mouse floating in mid air?
“Since when can mice fly?”
1942
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mighty_Mouse
It’s quite a bit over-engineered for the purpose. Is this supposed to be an amusement park attraction that has to run for millions of cycles?
The interesting part is how to make it simpler.
Impressive is doing it with a clockwork motor, cams and wires. 200 years ago they would probably have provided it with a squeak too.
Not safe for Red Dwarf’s Cat. Might break another tooth if chowing down on robot fish is anything to go by…
Like a koo koo clock but cuter.
I’d hack a hard drive head positioning motor or 2 to make Micky move. Mice are so fast!
Die Fledermaus. A popular opera this time of the year.