Along the lines of your skull, Carol, I grabbed a few of these "brain" jello mold from Dollar Tree before they disappeared after Halloween. They could make a cool robot chassis or upper body for a "Brain Bot". Fairly stiff, and translucent, so a few LEDs inside would show through pretty well.
It's a bit after Halloween, but here is a couple of videos showing my Darth Vader Candy dish mod I did using the Parallax Halloween Pumpkin project.
Instead of a PIR sensor, I opted for a IR sensor which is triggered when someone reaches into the top candy dish area. I created separate circuits for the Audio and the IR Sensor and added a 5v regulator for these parts of the circuit.
Initially, the eyes of the Vader head were too dark and did not show the Red Light from insider so I cut them out. The only thing I had available were some ESD bags so I cut one up to cover the eyes. I need to find a better solution, but since I am running this off of 6v rather than the 7.2 Power Pack, the 12v light would not light up so I added some LEDs. These are not that bright so I still need to work on that. It's still a work in progress, but it's a Vader candy dish so it's for all seasons.
The spinning laser rig is basically a light spirograph. It makes trippy patterns you don't have much control over. It is a neat thing though, easy to build and fun to play with. I left mine with a *cough* party in the late 1990's and they ran the battery down watching it on what I was assured were a wide array of psychedelic assistants. All you have to do is mount a mirror on the shaft of a DC motor slightly tilted, so that if a beam hits it the reflection will spin. Aim the laser at two or three of them in succession and you get neat patterns on the wall.
If you want to make deliberate patterns it gets expensive fast, and if you want to make those patterns in colors it gets like five figures expensive even at the hobby level. Again it's not so much the lasers; lasers are cheap now, even RGB lasers, even high power lasers that can cut holes in cardboard. What's expensive now is the steering controls. The hardware for that hasn't changed much since 1990; it was expensive then, and it still is. The lasers are cheaper and the computer to run the show are cheaper but whipping those mirrors around in milliseconds in a guided manner still requires some pretty nontrivial hardware.
Right about expensive, laser would be < couple percent of the cost depending on your optics in the past. Now, it looks like galvos and drives are much less for low end work. The fun part would be basically programming up your laser scanned vga projection like a monitor would do or you could go the vector route. Then you have the A/O modulator and driver to set the intensity. So it would be reinventing the vga or vector monitor to do one.
Be about ten Christmases away if I even had the time to try.
Mine will be ready by Tuesday or Wednesday. We had a mini-Robothon with some FIRST kids this weekend
that put my schedule back a little. Here is a little preview. There will be a robot in this set-up!
It really looks better in real life. I did not have the right lighting for showing off all the colors well.
I will try to get my photographer hubby to take a video of it in better light.
An afternoon slam build for Maker Faire next weekend. Phil did it better, I did it quicker! It's all about getting the mallet to bounce off the chimes quickly for good sound.
Comments
Jim
Instead of a PIR sensor, I opted for a IR sensor which is triggered when someone reaches into the top candy dish area. I created separate circuits for the Audio and the IR Sensor and added a 5v regulator for these parts of the circuit.
Initially, the eyes of the Vader head were too dark and did not show the Red Light from insider so I cut them out. The only thing I had available were some ESD bags so I cut one up to cover the eyes. I need to find a better solution, but since I am running this off of 6v rather than the 7.2 Power Pack, the 12v light would not light up so I added some LEDs. These are not that bright so I still need to work on that. It's still a work in progress, but it's a Vader candy dish so it's for all seasons.
Circuit Vid:
Completed IR Activated Vader Candy Dish
Thanks.
Ah, yes. Darth Santa has been considered.
Right about expensive, laser would be < couple percent of the cost depending on your optics in the past. Now, it looks like galvos and drives are much less for low end work. The fun part would be basically programming up your laser scanned vga projection like a monitor would do or you could go the vector route. Then you have the A/O modulator and driver to set the intensity. So it would be reinventing the vga or vector monitor to do one.
Be about ten Christmases away if I even had the time to try.
http://www.oldcomputermuseum.com/brainiac_k30.html
Properly configured, it could play a mean game of tic-tac-toe!
-Phil
https://store.griswoldfx.com/kits/
that put my schedule back a little. Here is a little preview. There will be a robot in this set-up!
This is a large music box made with an Arlo robot, Veho speaker and using LED strip lights.
Hope you like it!
Remove those offending casters and make it balance!
You just gave me the idea to do that with a balancer for the Mini Maker Faire next week. Thanks and will advise!
https://dtla.makerfaire.com/maker/entry/98/
I will try to get my photographer hubby to take a video of it in better light.
What LED strip is that?
Now can you make it shoot flames, while it's playing? Enquiring minds want to know!
-Phil
COOL :cool: