P1 In The Movies (Again)
JonnyMac
Posts: 9,383
For those who have seen -- or are about to see -- the latest Superman movie, you'll be happy to know that the robot called 4 (voiced by Alan Tudyk) has a P1 that allows it to come to life. The head and hand mechanics and lighting were designed by my friend, Rick Galinson. All of the head motion is controlled through an RC transmitter. The S.BUS output from the receiver feeds a P1 that was programmed by Rick to create the motion and lighting needed for the character to come to life.
I remember nearly two years ago when Rick and I met for dinner where he pulled out his PC and showed me a circuit board design for the central eye of this robot. It has two concentric rings of 2mm WS2812 pixels. The boards were made in a toaster oven.
Rick is an amazing engineer and a great friend, and I'm always happy to assist him when he calls for a driver that will make his programming life easier. In this project he's using an S.BUS receiver, a Dyanamixel driver, and a pixel driver. Maybe even a standard servo driver. I'll have to ask.
Comments
Good stuff. I hope they intend to use a P2 in Superman 2!
Very cool, Jon!
That must be a lot of fun to work on.
Or maybe just lots of pressure?
Going to see this soon, will keep in mind, thanks.
Space is always at a premium in Rick's projects; that's why he goes with the P1 Mini (he bought a bunch when Ken announced its retirement). With the P2i, there is a chance that the P2 could find its way into one of Rick's prop projects.
It's all Rick. I just help out if he needs an assist with one of my drivers -- or needs a driver that I don't have. For example, he built the small robot called Dewey in "Finch," and end-of-the-world movie with Tom Hanks.
Rick needed a Dynamixel driver that worked with RS-485. Luckily, I had build a little RS-485 board in the size/shape of an XBee that could be plugged into the PAB. We spent a day in his shop writing code and drinking beers -- and we got it all to work! This allowed Rick to create animation sequences that were duplicated (on another platform) by the electronics guy on that job. Still, using the P1 was critical to getting things developed for the film.
Can be both, but mostly the latter. For example, the day before Rick was to be on set for Superman he called me wanting me to remind him how to save variable values in the EEPROM so they'd auto boot. He's been in the business since before Jurassic Park 1 and knows that directors always ask for adjustments. In this case Rick used pots on the RC transmitter to tune the LED colors on 4's face. With a button press he was able to save those to EE so that they'd boot up the same the next day. Anticipating what could happen helps reduce the pressure a bit.
Sadly the P2i was shelved recently. Probably if there were a collective commitment to buy ~500 or so initial qty this year, then it was on target to be launched by Thanksgiving. But I'm told that's not the case.
One option I've been offered from Parallax is to carry on the project as an outside effort, and then make them available to Parallax for USA distribution and direct to EU customers from an EU webstore. If anyone would like to get involved in making it happen, please PM me. I can make great hardware, but need to collaborate with some wizards at sales/marketing, especially initially to secure pre-sales that would help fund the investment.
The P2-I module is paused until further notice, and we'll discuss at the upcoming August PLF. These are the pieces we're looking at:
If you are a possible customer for the P2-I, please let me know about your application, volumes, and timeline. This information is the other side of the economics of the P2-I, as we need to have a more confident guarantee in volumes. I'll add you to the customer feedback list and see that we're meeting your needs, and that ours can also be met. kgracey@parallax.com
Thanks,
Ken Gracey
Parallax Inc.