Robot Build - Tachikoma from Ghost in the Shell

Hardsuit · Post by **Hardsuit** » Mon May 21, 2012 5:11 am

Currently scratch building a 1/5 scale (approx) Tachikoma from the Japanese animated show "Ghost in the Shell". When it is
done it'll just fit inside of a 18" cube.

Been having fun figuring out what parts to buy and techniques to use in the physical build, and was greatly relieved to have
found the Turnigy/er9x combo for the control system.

The inner structural elements are laser cut 1/8" hardboard, and the skin will be metallic blue art paper laminated to
poster-board, also cut via laser cutter. All of the base modeling is being done in Lightwave 3D, then sent through software
called Pepakura that creates flattened 2d shapes for printing out on paper and reassembling into a 3d model.

I'm using the the Fingertech mecanum wheels direct mounted on mini metal gearmotors from Pololu, and the VEX ESC
controller.

Right now I'm delving into how to do the mixes and switching in er9x to have the kind of control functions I want.
Pretty sure it's all doable, just have to wrap my head around the various permutations and options available.

Info on what the heck a Tachikoma is here: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tachikomas
Info on Pepakura here: http://www.tamasoft.co.jp/pepakura-en/
Pics for some of the build stages here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/8829589@N0 ... 824474558/

Post by **Rob Thomson** » Mon May 21, 2012 8:33 am

Sounds like fun! Good luck

Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

kaos · Post by **kaos** » Mon May 21, 2012 3:32 pm

Holly cow! cam cam, digital laser print/cutter. envey the equipment you have with all these toys. and I am still using a piece of 2.5 mm copper wire found in the crack of garage to do my pcb board soldering.

Just don't let your boss find out (unless you are the boss).

Looks fun and interesting.

Hardsuit · Post by **Hardsuit** » Tue May 22, 2012 2:31 am

kaos wrote:Holly cow! cam cam, digital laser print/cutter. envey the equipment you have with all these toys. and I am still using a piece of 2.5 mm copper wire found in the crack of garage to do my pcb board soldering.
Just don't let your boss find out (unless you are the boss).
Looks fun and interesting.

Actually the tools are from the Dallas Makerspace. (http://dallasmakerspace.org) Laser cutter, couple of CNC mills in various capacities, 3d desktop printers, woodworking and blacksmithing tools, pretty decent electronics lab, photography darkroom, etc. Makes life a LOT easier doing projects like this, both in access to tools, as well as the other
people in the 'space who have knowledge & experience that I don't.

Post by **GrootWitbaas** » Tue May 22, 2012 9:06 pm

Now that is a very nice idea and place !!!

Hardsuit · Post by **Hardsuit** » Tue May 29, 2012 5:58 am

New build pics added into the set on my Flickr account. Started the glue-ups on the inner skeletal supports.

http://www.flickr.com/photos/8829589@N0 ... 824474558/

kaos · Post by **kaos** » Tue May 29, 2012 2:18 pm

interesting to see it coming together. keep it up.

Hardsuit · Post by **Hardsuit** » Sun Jun 03, 2012 1:30 am

First field test was, shall we say, mixed...

He rolled along ok, but far too much flex in the chassis and not enough torque from the motors to have the sideways movement from the mecanum wheels. Plus, managed to fry one of the motors from stalling it out too much. :/ Going to redo the chassis to beef it up, and for the time being will switch to regular wheels until I work the rest of the kinks out.

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