We started working on putting our project together a week ago and so far it’s coming along quite well. There are still technical challenges we need to figure out but things look promising.
There are primarily 2 physical parts in our project:
1. The eye and its mechanism
2. The wall/tower structure that’s gonna hold up the eye
To build the eye, we first created a mini prototype of the whole thing; a 1:5 scale model to be precise. We designed the parts, 3D printed them and tested out the movement using servo motors. It seemed to work quite well, so we moved on to creating the full scale piece.
We started 3D printing the parts, and it was a bit of a challenge given the scale of our objects. The 3D printer plate has a limited plate size and so we had to get creative and cut up our parts on the Prusa Slicer only to rejoin them after printing.
Here’s how the eyeball came out, for example:
When all the parts were printed and assembled, we were happy with the final piece:
Next we started working on the mechanism of the eye. We tested with a neopixel to see what kind of
diffusion the eyeball would create:
The thing we are struggling with right now is the moving mechanism of the eye. We can’t seem to figure out a way to translate the motion of the tiny servos to move this large eye. Hopefully we’ll come up with a solution by Monday.
The walls were also something we put together over the weekend. We got help from Nelson at the Scene Shop and sawed the walls from large pieces of wood.
This is how a section of the wall looks after completion:
