Dynamic Animatronic Vehicular Entity (AKA: Cyber-Dave) |
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2005 |
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| December | Christmas again! Well, it's
an excuse to go out and have a good time, isn't it? Mike had been
working on a restyled and resized head, and brought that along for a
test fit. It looks really good, and it shouldn't be long now
before we can get the finished item fitted and complete the remaining
wiring and electronics installation.
Early in the new year should see us starting to bring DAVE to life for the first time, and we can't wait to see it work!
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| November | Mike
brought up a first cut of the front body moulding for a fitting
session. All looking good. He's also started working on a
second version of the head to get the proportions correct and more
faithful to the original maquette.
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| October | Today
was a milestone date for the DAVE project. It was
the first occasion that we had been able to put DAVE's arms, shoulders
and spine together into one unit. It's starting to look like a
robot at long last!
Most of the upper body skeleton is now finished, and we've made some decisons about where we can locate the control electronics without spoiling the aesthetics of the structure. It looks like everything will fit in quite nicely. George has started work on the neck mechanism, visible in the photo below. Laurie found us a bit of video which has kick-started some ideas for the rig, so Ian's going to have a look into how we can build that. Mike spent some time roughing out a shape for the breastplate and so is now in a position to start work on the body sculpture.
I've slotted a few more photos into the approximate places in the build diary below. |
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| September | I've
started building the shoulder and spine assembly, which should be
complete in the next week or two. Once this is done I can fit the
arms to it and we'll see DAVE starting to come together. George is
working on the neck mechanism and is aiming to have that ready by the
end of the month.
We have a meeting planned for the first weekend of October which should be a major milestone in the project. Laurie is going to be filming some more of the build for his video. I think we will be in a good position to decide on publishing some photos of DAVE, so in early October you might see a big update to this section. Meanwhile, back to building......... |
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| August | George
and Ian came over yesterday (14th) and we tried a power test on the
elbow and shoulder motors using the full 24 volts. Instead
of driving the arm from the test rig, all we wanted to do at this stage
was to prove that the mechanical assemblies were OK and that the motors
could actually do the job we had anticipated. George wired up a
speed controller which we could switch between motors one at a time,
running the joint through its range of motion from a transmitter
stick. Everything seemed to be working fine at this stage, which
is very encouraging.
We've now got both arms more or less complete. Still a few bits to finish off but most of it is done. Ian's starting work on some controller boards for the hands, and the plan is to locate one in each forearm to manage the data for the wrist, thumb and fingers. It's all starting to gel now, after what seems like a very long time since we first started this project! Mike has got hold of the metal we needed for DAVE's spine, so putting it all together will be my next job. Stay tuned... |
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| July |  Another
DAVE team meeting took place at the start of the month. This was a very productive session with some good design
ideas agreed for the spine, the neck and the shoulders. Now that we have the
basic layout of this sorted we can get on and start putting the bulk of DAVE
together.
Up to now the main part of the build has been concerned with the arms and motor control assemblies. Constructing the skeleton and the body, even though there are some large pieces of metal involved, should be a relatively quick process compared to the arms.
Here are 3 stages in making one of the arm cross-frames:-
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| May | DAVE
construction is progressing well with a lot of the basic arm and joint
mechanism
done. Quite a bit of time has been invested in making the shoulder
joints strong enough and engineered well enough to make everything work as
it should. Apart from the hands, these are probably the most complex parts
of the build due to the three planes of movement which are required. I wish I (John) had more time to spend working on this project as it's not a five-minute job; it feels more like a job for life! We'll get there eventually though. Once most of DAVE's mechanics are in place, the others can really get stuck in and get on with the wiring, electronics, software and testing the systems out.
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All text and images © the DAVE project team 2004 |
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