Animatronics

[Honus]

One of my hobbies is building animatronics for some of my friends that create movie costumes. It's pretty fun and interesting work as you have to figure out all kinds of electrical/mechanical systems that often have to work in a very small space. After doing some of this work I can really appreciate the professionals that do this kind of work for movies and commercials. Much of this work is still done by hand and within very tight time constraints. Some of the control mechanisms can be extremely complex.

Three of the best animatronic artists working today are John Nolan, Gustav Hoegen and Chris Clarke. Their work just has to been seen to be believed so here's some of their showreels. Amazing (and sometimes creepy) stuff- enjoy!

[Mike Mcdermid]

that is fucking amazing

I used to work with a guy who wanted to do bionic hands for amputees ,he was an ex jim henson guy sounds like a fun job

[Honus]

Modern animatronics are pretty amazing. I've seen some work that at first glance I thought was a real animal.

Most of work I'm doing is for costuming so it's quite a bit different as the person in the costume has to be able to control everything, unlike movie work where it's usually controlled by a puppeteer off camera with a radio. Right now I'm working on a full animatronic Iron Man suit for a friend as well as a screen accurate Predator costume for another friend. The Iron Man suit will have opening helmet, lights, sound effects, moving flaps, etc. The Predator costume has a head tracking cannon w/ laser sight and sound effects. Eventually I'll do the Predator head with moving mandibles. In both cases I am being provided costume pieces by the owner and then I just figure out how to add all of the necessary functions and build the control system.

Here's the Iron Man helmet so far- I still need to add the lights for the eyes. It was pretty tricky squeezing the servo motors, wireless radio, controller and battery in there. I just got the upper torso section and gauntlets so I'll be working on those parts next.


Here's the Predator backpack and an old video test that shows the animatronic cannon. I should have the finished backpack casting in a few weeks. Been working on this project for a long time...



Last year I made an animatronic Stargate movie helmet- it was a fun low budget job so it was made from cardstock and paper mache. The head moves, eyes light up and the fans move.



I've been really interested in prosthetics too- a neighbor of mine lost his leg some time ago and we chat every now and then about design, cost and function of prosthetics. There was guy who lost his arm in Iraq that I was helping out with manufacturing sourcing for a while for low cost prosthetics but then he went to work for DARPA on a much more advanced project.

[Matthew Strongin]

Honus, I am in awe of your skills. I can't think of any rational reason for me to have a functioning Iron Man helmet, but now I want one.

[xjoex]

That is bad ass! You must spend some time at JB Saunders...

-Joe

[Honus]

That is bad ass! You must spend some time at JB Saunders...

-Joe

I could spend hours walking around that place- I always find all kinds of cool stuff there. My other favorite place is Sparkfun. I use their BatchPCB service for manufacturing my circuit boards.




I almost forgot- here's the link to the Stargate helmet video-

[sonny]

did you guys build a 1:1 scale chinese woman w/ built in hydro-propulsion?

[Mike Mcdermid]

Modern animatronics are pretty amazing. I've seen some work that at first glance I thought was a real animal.

Most of work I'm doing is for costuming so it's quite a bit different as the person in the costume has to be able to control everything, unlike movie work where it's usually controlled by a puppeteer off camera with a radio. Right now I'm working on a full animatronic Iron Man suit for a friend as well as a screen accurate Predator costume for another friend. The Iron Man suit will have opening helmet, lights, sound effects, moving flaps, etc. The Predator costume has a head tracking cannon w/ laser sight and sound effects. Eventually I'll do the Predator head with moving mandibles. In both cases I am being provided costume pieces by the owner and then I just figure out how to add all of the necessary functions and build the control system.

Here's the Iron Man helmet so far- I still need to add the lights for the eyes. It was pretty tricky squeezing the servo motors, wireless radio, controller and battery in there. I just got the upper torso section and gauntlets so I'll be working on those parts next.


Here's the Predator backpack and an old video test that shows the animatronic cannon. I should have the finished backpack casting in a few weeks. Been working on this project for a long time...



Last year I made an animatronic Stargate movie helmet- it was a fun low budget job so it was made from cardstock and paper mache. The head moves, eyes light up and the fans move.



I've been really interested in prosthetics too- a neighbor of mine lost his leg some time ago and we chat every now and then about design, cost and function of prosthetics. There was guy who lost his arm in Iraq that I was helping out with manufacturing sourcing for a while for low cost prosthetics but then he went to work for DARPA on a much more advanced project.

Theres a guy upstairs whos into iron man etc he has lots of the CAD and stuff for how it was all done off cgi I think the studios employed them at the minute they are doing the incredible hulk? Hes not exactly humble however it seems working for "hollywood" has gone to his head

DARPA were one of the agencies we knew were working on bionic limbs but I think they had managed to plough through 80 million Us without having a marketable product dunno if that changed been out of that for a good 2 years I know Hangar distribute the bionic limbs we did now to the US marines et al
theres a few videos out there now but none of the original tests



I knew i had heard the name john nolan before

[Honus]

Yeah I really don't have any interest in working in Hollywood- I just do this for fun. :)

The movie Iron Man suits were 3D printed and then the prints were used to make molds so duplicates could be made. Most of the movie suit parts were done in a flexible urethane material. The guy that made the suit I'm working on owns several movie suit pieces. In many of the movie scenes the actors wore upper torso parts and the leg sections were done using CGI.

There's an interesting book about DARPA titled "The Department of Mad Scientists." It's a good read. Concerning the prosthetic arm I know there were two teams working on it, one was Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL- the guy I was helping went to work there) and the other was DEKA Research, Dean Kamen's company. APL was originally working on a myoelectric arm using sensors that read muscle impulses and fed the signals to processors to have the arm perform various functions or combinations of functions. They then were working on implementing injectable myoelectric sensors (IMES) developed at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. I know there's been some really promising work on that front.

DEKA then built the "Luke" arm, which dispensed of the myoelectric inputs for a more conventional joystick/sensor input system so it was a bit more practical, even if it looked nothing like a human arm. There has been another process cal re-enervation that goes beyond myoelectric control where nerves are surgically transplanted and then electrodes pick up signals from those nerves. The biggest problem I see with many of these systems is cost- it's simply obscenely expensive and will keep many people that need advanced prosthetics from actually being able to use them. My area of interest is in providing lower cost open source prosthetics based on readily available electronics/controls but that's a tough nut to crack too.

Here's the DEKA "Luke" arm-

[Mike Mcdermid]

Yeah I really don't have any interest in working in Hollywood- I just do this for fun. :)

The movie Iron Man suits were 3D printed and then the prints were used to make molds so duplicates could be made. Most of the movie suit parts were done in a flexible urethane material. The guy that made the suit I'm working on owns several movie suit pieces. In many of the movie scenes the actors wore upper torso parts and the leg sections were done using CGI.

There's an interesting book about DARPA titled "The Department of Mad Scientists." It's a good read. Concerning the prosthetic arm I know there were two teams working on it, one was Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab (APL- the guy I was helping went to work there) and the other was DEKA Research, Dean Kamen's company. APL was originally working on a myoelectric arm using sensors that read muscle impulses and fed the signals to processors to have the arm perform various functions or combinations of functions. They then were working on implementing injectable myoelectric sensors (IMES) developed at the Rehabilitation Institute of Chicago. I know there's been some really promising work on that front.

DEKA then built the "Luke" arm, which dispensed of the myoelectric inputs for a more conventional joystick/sensor input system so it was a bit more practical, even if it looked nothing like a human arm. There has been another process cal re-enervation that goes beyond myoelectric control where nerves are surgically transplanted and then electrodes pick up signals from those nerves. The biggest problem I see with many of these systems is cost- it's simply obscenely expensive and will keep many people that need advanced prosthetics from actually being able to use them. My area of interest is in providing lower cost open source prosthetics based on readily available electronics/controls but that's a tough nut to crack too.

Here's the DEKA "Luke" arm-

Its incredible stuff and reaffirms my belief that technology can do so much good doing it for fun was how the bebionic hand came about

myoelectrics was what we used on this but I had not seen the implant version I know they were working on growing the hardmount point ,titanium with some kind of surface that allowed biological material to grow into and seal it into the bone or stump rather than have a socket in the carbon forearm.

we really did work in a similar fashion to what your trying to achieve and i believe it is possible, we made the things work for nothin using basic parts out of catalogues .

My experience of it however was the Insurance companies and how they could kill the dream ,getting it past medical qualification was ok but due to the sheer weight of how the system prevents this happening ,i think it went from 5k to 50 k and a lot of that was mark ups and by the time each of the next layer took their cut ....basically if you don't have the insurance or could match half the bill you were not on the list.....a bit disheartening when your goal was to help people..maybe someone will come along and just say to hell with the system im going round the rules???

I had never seen Luke its fascinating and makes you think about having another go ...but hey if this is your passion then i hope you go a long way with it

[Honus]

The best way to get around the system is probably to go the open source route, but then people have assemble their own prosthetics from scratch or from a kit of sorts. There is a Open Prosthetics Project that has been around for a while- Open Prosthetics Project Wiki - Prosthetics shouldn't cost an arm and a leg.

[Mike Mcdermid]

Cool I like things like this

This is the UK version i suppose Welcome to Remap. Remap Custom Made Equipment For People With Disabilities its where engineers give up their spare time to design stuff .Dont do as much as I should but then time is finite.

[Honus]

Here's the glove controller for the Iron Man suit. It uses RFID tags to actuate functions through a wireless controller.

[Honus]

Got the Iron Man helmet opening/closing- still need to dial it in a bit and add the eyes.

[Eric Estlund]

Clockwork!

"The Alchemyst's Clocktower"

[Honus]

My friend's Iron Man suit is almost ready- just a few more days of work left to do! Finishing up the shoulder rocket pods and forearm missile right now. He's planning on wearing it to the opening of Iron Man 3 so that should be fun.

Here's a little video of the back flaps moving-

[ToddFarr]

Honus,
Cool stuff man! What hardware are you using for those actuations?

[Honus]

Honus,
Cool stuff man! What hardware are you using for those actuations?

Everything is servo driven. Control inputs are done using RFID tags in the glove fingers and then microcontrollers (Arduino) tell the servos what to do. Wait until you see the finished suit. :)

[ToddFarr]

So do you use rotary servos for everything and build linkages to translate to linear movement? I do automated machine control for a living, all our stuff is huge and PLC based, so this micro kind of stuff fascinates me, a whole different word with a lot of similarities! I can't wait to see the finished suit, when you planning on having it done?

[Honus]

So do you use rotary servos for everything and build linkages to translate to linear movement? I do automated machine control for a living, all our stuff is huge and PLC based, so this micro kind of stuff fascinates me, a whole different word with a lot of similarities! I can't wait to see the finished suit, when you planning on having it done?

Yep- standard rotary RC hobby servos with linkages. Some are analog servos and some are digital. I did consider using some small Firgelli linear servos in the helmet but they moved too slow for my liking. I have also done some work where I needed more linear travel than a standard servo can provide so I pull the pot out of the servo and use either a ten turn external pot or a SoftPot/HotPot membrane potentiometer to provide positional control. What I do is mount the servo on a linear slide with a gear rack and then the external pot tells the servo how far to travel.

I should have the suit animatronics finished any day now and then the suit will go to paint. When I'm done I'm going to write up a complete build tutorial that shows other costume builders how to build the control system and mechanisms. I'll have a complete parts listing with all of the electronics, code, etc. I have a LOT of builders that are waiting on me to finish this thing! :)