Creative Inventions and Robotics

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Bouncers, Gargoyles, Avatars Butlers and other
Door Greeters
Creative Inventions and Robotics www.build-it-you
rself.com
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Discovery
The Problem
One thousand years ago, superstition and the
sword ruled. It was a time of darkness. It was
a world of fear. It was the age of gargoyles,
avatars and mighty statues who protected the
locals from evil spirits and nat-brain
no-gooders.
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Discovery
Your Mission
Evil spirits and powerful dumbos have returned!
Your mission is to build a smart, robot critter
to greet visitors who come to your room and set
them straight.
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Discovery
The History of Door Greeters
Gargoyles Gargoyles are a race of very powerful
winged beings who were the defenders of castles.
By day, they are immobilized in stone as statues
on the castle parapets. When the sun sets, the
stone turns to flesh and they take to their task
of defending their home.
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Discovery
The History of Door Greeters
Buddha The Awakened One is a being who has
become fully enlightened, has permanently
overcome anger, greed, and ignorance, and has
achieved complete liberation from suffering,
better known as Nirvana. The Buddha at the North
Temple Pagoda in Suzhou does not have a big
stomach because of his appetite, but because he's
swallowing all the evil of the world (or so they
say).
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Discovery
The History of Door Greeters
Avatar Ganesh, the Hindu God The chubby, gentle,
wise, elephant-headed Ganesh is one of Hinduisms
most popular deities. He is the patron of letters
and of learning. Ganesh is honored at the
start of a journey or business venture.
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Discovery
The History of Door Greeters
The Sphinx The body of a lion with the head of a
king or god, the sphinx symbolizes strength and
wisdom. A great sphinx sits outside the
Egyptian pyramids and says, Dont mess with me!
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Discovery
The History of Door Greeters
Butler Nehemiah was the butler (or cup-bearer)
to King Artaxerxes in 446BC. Butler is a
position of great responsibility and honor in
royal households.
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Discovery
The History of Door Greeters
Bouncer A big palooka who keeps the riff raff
out.
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Design
Specifications
Detectors, Mechanisms and CPU

• Detect when the door opens.
• Detect when a visitor is friend or foe.
• Welcome friends.
• Dance
• ???
• Scare unfriendlies.
• - Throw water at them

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Design
Materials Needed
The Door Greeter Critter

• Premium Quality Junk
• Scissors and glue gun
• Colored pencils
• Business cards
• Colored paper, cloth or sheets of foamies

Detectors, Mechanisms, Control
This depends on your budget and what you want
your critter to do.
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Design
Modular Construction
An important Build-It-Yourself trick Build the
parts of your solution
first. If you glue them all
together as you go along,
your model will be
rigid. It will be difficult to make it
move in interesting ways and it will be
difficult to modify
or fix.
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Development
Eyes and Face
Start by drawing some BIG eyes.
The eyes are very important! They can tell a lot
about the soul of your critter. Many artists
will often exaggerate the size of eyes. One
measure of the quality of a photograph is how
well the photographer has focused on the eyes.
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Development
Eyes and Face
If you think youre a hot shot and you want to
take it to the next level, you could try making
some soulful eyes from your premium quality junk.
These eyes are made from guitar picks
bottle caps wire fishing floats plastic
spoons
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Development
Hands and Feet
2.5
2.5
2.5
2.5
x2
x2
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Development
Hands and Feet
x2
x2
Youll need two hands and two feet.
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Development
Hands and Feet
12 pipe cleaner
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Development
Hands and Feet
12 pipe cleaner
Glue the pipe cleaners between the hands/feet and
small elliptical pieces, or use tape.
12 pipe cleaner
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Development
The Structure
It is very important to build a strong structure.
Think about keeping the heavy parts as low to
the ground as possible so your model wont tip
over.
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Development
Mechanisms
Most Build-It-Yourself models are driven by a
sidewinder gear train. This gear train enables
you to control the speed and strength required to
make your model move.
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Development
Control
Logic Diagram
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Deployment
Presenting Your Solution

• Clear
• Concise
• Convincing

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Plan for 1st Workshop

• Present the problem and the mission
• Start a Lab Book
• Cover
• Law of the Lab
• Specifications
• Dance
• Throw water
• New building tricks
• 3 ways to build and present ideas
• To Build
• Critter parts

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Plan for 2nd Workshop

• Review work done last week
• The Problem and our mission
• 3 ways to build or present ideas
• Show and tell
• Specifications
• Dance
• Throw water
• New building tricks
• Problem solving tricks
• Tool rules
• To Build
• Critter parts
• Structure
• Gear train

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Useful Building Tricks

• What are 4 phases of building a successful
  solution?
• Why are the eyes of your characters important?
• Why is modular construction useful?
• What are qualities of a good structure?
• What are 3 measures of success when presenting
  your project?

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