Yet rather entertaining if you consider it a challenge.
My latest creation is inspired by ‘The Most Useless Machine, Ever!’ as seen on youtube.
Having had this kind of machine on my todo list for a while and being invited to a wedding where I knew the newlyweds would appreciate such device I decided to go for it.
It’s a silly device and utterly useless but it was most certainly fun to build and I learned quite a few things from it, despite it’s simplicity.
First and foremost I got to feel a bit more confident in constructing something out of wood/metal to hold different electronic components. That’s one thing I’ve been a bit anxious about as it has been ages since I made anything from scratch. Secondly I had to open up a Servo motor and resolder a few wires to enable a different type of control and as a result of that, I now know how I can hack it further to get actual position feedback directly from a standard servo. This is something I only thought possible (or at least with my skills) through using servos with such a feature already built in, like the Robotis Dynamixel servos that I’ve been using before, but being able to get position feedback from normal (And cheap) servos definitely opens up for some goodies 🙂
A how-to on creating one of these can be found everyone on the web so I wont explain the specifics.
Only thing different from theirs to mine is that I used this wooden hand carved box from ebay and the brass rim covering the cut through the lid was only put there to cover up for my lacking wood-cutting skills. Wasn’t planned for initially 🙂
Here are a few stills:
I had quite a good time shaping the finger as well but I forgot to document it by stills before I handed over the present, so you’ll have to check it out in the video instead, which is here:
Jakob Welner 