Week 8 Progress

    The contraption responsible for the movement of the animatronic device is constructed this week. The rails and the piston are screwed into the board and tested for their functionality together. The speakers provided by the Innovation Studio are programmed into the Arduino and tested as well. Though the speakers work, the volume is not very loud. The other parts (e.g. hands) of the animatronic device are also constructed with simple materials.

Objectives:

• Install the rails
• Program audio
• Created hands

Installing Rails in Conjunction with the Piston

    We are currently in the process of creating the rail contraption that will propel our animatronic device forward. The rails are screwed into a wooden platform and are testing to be in working condition. The final design should of this portion of the design will look like the image in Figure 1 below.

Figure 1: Piston Contraption

Program the Audio

    We test the speakers from the Innovation Studio for its functionality, and they do indeed work! Though the speakers work, the volume is unfortunately very soft. In our design of the animatronic device, the scream that the nun makes should be loud enough to be heard clearly from at least a few feet away. We will either get amplifiers or make other plans to enhance the sound volume.

Completing the Finer Details of the Body

    We worked on the hands as well. We created the hands from cardboard, thin wooden sticks, foam, and gloves. A hot glue gun was used to firmly stick the parts together. The final product will be covered by a glove to hide the hand's frame and make it look like a smooth hand. The frame of the hand is shown in Figure 2.

Figure 2: Hand Frames