Giant robotic LEGO figure
Towards the end of last year, we band of merry social media folk had the genius idea to learn more about robotics — so off to the Pi Towers Maker Lab we went, armed with a dream and next to zero idea how difficult building a giant robotic LEGO figure would be.
Under the hood
So, how does our gigantic bright yellow LEGO figure do all their tricks?
Three servos are hidden inside the body: one to move the head and one in charge of each arm. A SparkFun Servo pHAT physically moves the three servos (the HAT is capable of controlling many more than three if you need it to). Running the show is a Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W connected to a Raspberry Pi Power Supply for juice.
As well as powering the servos, Raspberry Pi Zero 2 W runs a basic web server that allows you to access the LEGO figure from anywhere on your network. You’ll be able to play around with the individual buttons our Maker in Residence programmed to make the figure dance, lift its right or left arm, or swivel its head.
Fluorescent filament
Every limb of the LEGO figure was printed on our trusty Ultimaker S5 printer and assembled by hand. The embossed Raspberry Pi logo on the t-shirt was achieved with an imported CAD file, before the whole t-shirt was 3D-printed as one piece. The eyes, eyebrows, and mouth were cut out on a Cricut machine and carefully stuck on to the head to achieve the appropriate level of jaunt.
Hard hands and servo schooling
Despite being lightly terrified by the technical difficulty of this project at the start, we found some really simple instructions from SparkFun on how to use their servos, and then it all came pretty easily. (Having our Maker in Residence on hand to translate for us laypeople may have been another invaluable bit of support. Probably. We’d have got there on our own in the end though, I’m sure…).
The LEGO figure’s hands also proved pretty tricky: they were hard to orientate for printing, so needed lots of supports. Luckily, snapping off 3D-printed supports is a favourite pastime of mine, so, silver linings.
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