BYOB: Build Your Own Bot
Writing by Conner Flynn on Thursday, 27 of September , 2007 at 12:34 am
Aside from being part of the Botjunkie team, I am also an artist and part time collectibles/antiques dealer. In other words, I come across alot of cool vintage parts and for the last several years, I make robots with them.
Today, I’m going to show you how to build a simple Camera robot. A robot made from found objects that you may have laying around the house. I’ll give you some basic ideas on what you’ll need to build it, show you step by step how it can be done and at the end, I will show you some other vintage camera robots that I’ve made in the past to give you an idea of what other things can be done. You are only limited by your imagination. So, follow me after the jump for lots of pictures and a walkthrough.
The first thing you want to do is find some cool parts and get a rough idea of what you want your bot to look like. Find some cool legs, feet etc. Get them all together. The camera of course, will be the body. As far as tools, you will need a screwdriver, wire cutter, some screws, a few nuts and bolts and a basic drill.
In this case, I am using bottle caps for the arms, a pair of tea strainers for the legs and some lamp socket parts for feet.(Note: It is probably not a good idea to work in an area that has one of your wife’s tablecloths on it. Lucky for me she wasn’t looking.)
Now, let’s start by attaching the feet to the legs. The silver tea strainers each come apart in the middle, so I drilled a hole in the bottom of the tea strainer and attached the golden colored socket to it, using a small nut and bolt. Do this for both.
Next you want to decide where to put the arms on the camera itself. Decide where they will look best and then measure it on both sides to make sure they are even. Mark them and simply drill the holes, one on each side.
I like to do the arms at this stage, because the weight on the upper half of the robot will determine where the legs are best positioned. For the arms, I sometimes like to use bottle caps. The way I do it, the arms are flexible and can move and be positioned. You can do this by first finding a flexible cord or cable.(I like to use computer peripheral cables etc. Like the thick black cord on a keyboard for instance. Anything that you can secure a screw inside of tightly.) Decide how long you want the arms, then you will know how many bottle caps you will need. Next, drill a hole through them so that they fit around the cable snuggly. Put them all in the same direction.(The last one will go on the cable backwards to form a robot hand. Simply screw a screw into the cable to hold the hand and the rest of it in place.)
Next, using the arm holes we made on the sides of the camera, we will attach the arms. Simply cut the extra cord off with a wire cutter. Then open up the camera and from inside of the camera body, put your screws through the holes and screw them into the robot arm cord. It will be a nice tight fit and you now have arms that are fairly posable.(depending on length of course)
Look at that. We now have a robot torso! Kinda cool on it’s own, but it still needs life.
Repeating the step where we drilled two holes for the arms, now you want to drill two holes on the bottom where your legs will attach. You’ll want to stand the legs up first and set the torso on top to see how the weight distributes. Then you will know where to drill your holes and attach the legs. Once you have eyeballed it and have your holes, attach them in the same way we made the legs themselves. A bolt going from inside the body, down through the strainer, secured tightly with the nut.
Wait, we need a head! You can use just about anything for a head. I like AC adapter boxes and have used many different types. On this one, I found a strange junk looking metal casing when I took apart an old radio. It held some sort of transformer. Well, now it’s a head damn it!(Things are better as bots!) I added a few little bits I had laying around for the eyes and mouth.(The mouth is a piece of jewelry)
Secure the head by screw, or bolt or glue and you are done!(Try to use glue as little as possible. Manly robots have screws and bolts)
The steps will all vary depending on what kind of parts you are working with and what you are trying to create. That’s what makes it fun. Now I’ll show you some other finished bots to give you an idea of what else you can do. This one’s name is Orbison.(Mostly because he reminded me of Roy Orbison. Notice the microchip arms.)
Here’s a cool bot. His name is Kodar. He has a great tea strainer head and toy arms.
You can even make lamps. This one was made using a vintage Polaroid land camera. He even has Dr. Octopus arms.
So there you have it. Almost anyone can build a small or even large robot friend. If any of you try your hand at building one yourself and need some help, just let me know.
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