I just found this forum, it’s so cool! I want to build my own animatronic and am hoping to receive some feedback or guidance. I’ve seen others online mention that it’s really difficult to find information on making animatronics for beginners. This is a great opportunity for the best minds in the CEC community to come together and help us beginners learn and build our very own animatronics. If you’re new to animatronics like me, feel free to ask questions in this thread too. If you’re one of the brilliant minds that has created an animatronic, feel free to add any advice.
To get started, here are some questions I have. I’m very grateful for any feedback!
1.) Arduino v.s. Pneumatic tubes:
I’m a complete novice on this topic so please forgive any misunderstandings. Anyways, I assume in the modern day, it’s better to use Arduino with servos rather than pneumatics that CEC/Rockafire used. Pneumatic tubes are very noisy and require loud music to mask the noise. Plus, I think they require a lot more parts such as valve banks and control boards you’d have to make. Arduino seems to be more cost effective and generally the better route for a hobbyist. Let me know my logic isn’t correct and there is a better reason to use pneumatic tubes.
2.) How to get started:
This is sort of a hard project to dive into. Any advice on where to start? Is there a book, course, tutorial, kit, or holy-grail guide you used when learning how to make animatronics? I’m having trouble figuring out how to actually get started on building one. Many tutorials I find online aren’t really similar to the animatronics of CEC. My goal is to start by creating the mechanics for a head (eyes, mouth, moving head), but I think starting out with just eyes is probably the first starting point for a beginner.
3.) Parts:
What are common parts you need to build an animatronic? Understanding which parts to buy/make is difficult since I am totally new to animatronics. For example, what type of Arduino boards do you use, what kind of mechanics do you use for certain parts of your animatronic? I understand that many people 3D print parts these days. How do they know what type of part to print to, say, make the mouth?
4.) Resources:
What websites do you use to find parts to 3D print for your animatronic?
5.) Programming:
I’ve seen that Bottango is used to program Arduino animatronics. Is this software recommended? If there are any others you recommend, please let us know.
6.) Cosmetics/Masks:
How can we make the cosmetics for an animatronic? I understand we can use latex masks, or, construct the appearance out of fabric. Is it standard to create the mask in 3D software like Blender, and then 3D print the mask out as a mold, and fill the mold with latex?
(I’m really bad at Blender, let me know if you have any tips or if there’s someone we can commission to make us a character mask in Blender.)
If we’re talking about a character made out of fabric, I’ve seen members of the CEC community create the heads out of foam, and then cover the foam with fabric. Any tips on what foam to use? Here’s an example (used for a walk-around costume).
Thank you for anyone who can help me and others get started to create our own animatronic. It’s something I’m very eager to do, and I hope I can learn from you guys!