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Jake The Junkbot

Made by 8BitsAndAByte / Robotics

About the project

A DIY robot made out of junk laying around the house.

Project info

Difficulty: Moderate

Platforms: Adafruit, Makeblock, Raspberry Pi

Estimated time: 1 week

License: Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike CC BY-SA version 4.0 or later (CC BY-SA 4+)

Items used in this project

Hardware components

	Paint, Tape, Glue, Screws, Wood, ...	x 1
	Pimoroni Four Letter pHAT for RasPi Zero	x 1
	Grove - Mini Track Ball	x 1
	DC MOTOR click	x 2
	Tiny Breadboard	x 1
	Vkey Voltage Keypad Voltage Keypad	x 1
	8xAA Battery Holder	x 1
	Battery Holder - 4xAA Square	x 1
	Tiny Breadboard	x 1
	Powerbank	x 1
	12-Channel 16-Bit PWM LED Driver	x 1
	Mini External USB Stereo Speaker	x 1
	Terminal Bracket - Qty 2 - Fits 10" w encl - Steel/Wht	x 3
	USB Hub	x 3
	Servo Mount - Servo Plate B	x 3
	Raspberry Pi 3 Model B	x 1

View all

Hand tools and fabrication machines

	Hot glue gun (generic)	x 1
	Soldering iron (generic)	x 1
	Dremel 4300	x 1

Story

Overview

Below a quick overview of the content.

Introduction and showcase video
Tracks
Body
Head
Arms
Controlled destruction
Wiring
Control

Introduction & showcase video

For Halloween I've decided to build a robot using only junk laying around the house, a bit like Frankenstein, but with a robot.

Showcase video

Tracks

Let's take a closer look. Starting from the bottom, we have the tracks allowing Jake to move around. You can see the two DC motors in the bottom and the two axis in the front. The tracks connect both gears to create his tracks. It's all mounted to the body with some pieces of scrap wood, screws, rope and a lot of hot glue.

Body

The body is an old metal trashcan painted two different kinds of silver, some safety tape and fridge magnet letters. All glued in place for extra strength.

Head

His head is an old box, with some styrofoam eyes, a beard with mustache and a speaker for yelling. As a nice bonus, he can open his head up for extra storage! After cutting a hole in the trashcans lid we can fit a servo attaching it to the box so he can move his head.

Arms

His arms are two spoons, attached with two servos, mounted the same way as the head servo (cut hole, mount bracket, add servo).

Controlled destruction

To give Jake the worn down look, I've used a hammer, paint, a pellet gun, a lighter and many more. I've followed roughly the steps outlined here. It's a lot of fun!

Wiring

All the electronics are in his chest, in a box, mounted with two screws. See below for wiring schematics (crude).

1 = Powerbankπ = Raspberry Pi

c = 16-Channel 12-bit PWM/Servo Driver 2 = 4xAA Battery holderH = Head servoLA = Left arm ServoRA = Right arm servoSpeakerKeypadR = RelayLT = Left trackRT = Right track3 = 12 v Battery pack

Control

Jake is controlled by this keypad, you can find all the code in the attachments.

Bonus

A happy family picture to wish you a happy Halloween!

Happy Halloween!

Schematics, diagrams and documents

Crude Schematics

A nice drawing of all the components

Code

Jake code

The code running on Jake

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time as time
import os
import Adafruit_PCA9685
import sys

import RPi.GPIO as GPIO
import time
import pygame

GPIO.setmode(GPIO.BCM)
GPIO.setup(26,GPIO.LOW)
GPIO.setup(19,GPIO.LOW)

pwm = Adafruit_PCA9685.PCA9685()

headMid = 350
headRight = 250
headleft = 500
headChannel = 3

rightArmMid = 400
rightArmDown = 150
rightArmUp = 600
rightArmChannel = 2

leftArmMid = 400
leftArmDown = 600
leftArmUp = 150
leftArmChannel = 1

# Set frequency to 60hz, good for servos.
pwm.set_pwm_freq(60)

# Helper function to make setting a servo pulse width simpler.
def set_servo_pulse(channel, pulse):

    pulse_length = 1000000    # 1,000,000 us per second
    pulse_length //= 60       # 60 Hz
    print('{0}us per period'.format(pulse_length))
    pulse_length //= 4096     # 12 bits of resolution
    print('{0}us per bit'.format(pulse_length))
    pulse *= 1000
    pulse //= pulse_length
    pwm.set_pwm(channel, 0, pulse)

def allOff():

    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, 0)
    pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, 0)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, 0)
 
def testHead():

    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headRight)
    time.sleep(0.5)
    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, 0)

    time.sleep(2)

    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headMid)
    time.sleep(0.5)
    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, 0)

    time.sleep(2)

    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headleft)
    time.sleep(0.5)
    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, 0)

    time.sleep(2)

    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headMid)
    time.sleep(0.8)
    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, 0)

def testRightArm():

    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmUp)
    time.sleep(0.8)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmDown)
    time.sleep(0.4)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, 0)

def testLeftArm():

    pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, leftArmUp)
    time.sleep(0.8)
    pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, leftArmDown)
    time.sleep(0.4)
    pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, 0)

def alive():

    pygame.mixer.music.load(open("/home/pi/Desktop/Robot/sounds/alive.mp3", "rb"))
    pygame.mixer.music.play()

    while pygame.mixer.music.get_busy():
        time.sleep(1)

    pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, leftArmUp)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmUp)

    pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, leftArmDown)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmDown)
    time.sleep(0.8)
    allOff()

def dance():

    pygame.mixer.music.load(open("/home/pi/Desktop/Robot/sounds/dance.mp3", "rb"))
    pygame.mixer.music.play()


    for x in range(0,7):

        pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, leftArmUp)
        pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmDown)

        pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headleft)
        time.sleep(0.8)
        pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, 0)

        pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, leftArmDown)
        pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmUp)

        pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headRight)
        time.sleep(0.8)
        allOff()

    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headMid)
    time.sleep(0.8)
    pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, 0)

def hey():

    pygame.mixer.music.load(open("/home/pi/Desktop/Robot/sounds/hey.mp3", "rb"))
    pygame.mixer.music.play()

    time.sleep(0.2)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmUp)
    time.sleep(0.8)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmDown)
    time.sleep(0.4)
    pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, 0)
    allOff()

def moveForward():
    GPIO.output(26, GPIO.LOW)
    GPIO.output(19, GPIO.LOW)

def moveLeft():
    GPIO.output(26, GPIO.LOW)

def moveRight():
    GPIO.output(19, GPIO.LOW)

def stop():
    GPIO.output(26, GPIO.HIGH)
    GPIO.output(19, GPIO.HIGH)

stop()

pygame.init()

# sets the window title
pygame.display.set_caption(u'Keyboard events')

# sets the window size
pygame.display.set_mode((400, 400))

pygame.mixer.init()

alive()
pwm.set_pwm(headChannel, 0, headMid)
pwm.set_pwm(rightArmChannel, 0, rightArmDown)
pwm.set_pwm(leftArmChannel, 0, leftArmDown)

while True:
    for event in pygame.event.get():


        if event.type in (pygame.KEYDOWN, pygame.KEYUP):

            key_name = pygame.key.name(event.key)
            key_name = key_name.upper()

            if event.type == pygame.KEYDOWN:
            # prints on the console the key pressed
                print (u'"{}" key pressed'.format(key_name))

                if key_name =="UP":
                    moveForward()

                elif key_name == "RIGHT":
                    moveRight()

                elif key_name == "LEFT":
                    moveLeft()

                elif key_name == "[*]":
                    dance()
                elif key_name == "[/]":
                    hey()
                elif key_name == "ENTER":
                    pygame.quit()
                    GPIO.cleanup()
                    break

            elif event.type == pygame.KEYUP:

                if key_name =="UP":
                    stop()
                elif key_name == "RIGHT":
                    stop()
                elif key_name == "LEFT":
                    stop()


GPIO.cleanup()

Credits

8BitsAndAByte

We’re Dane & Nicole, two makers that create tremendously terrible tech, which we happily share with you on our channel! https://www.youtube.com/c/8bitsandabyte

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About the project

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