Built an animatronic crow that syncs head movement to any BPM
Hey everybody! So i spent the last 2 months building this animatronic crow. I got inspired by a video where Adam Savage took an animatronic apart using a CT scan, so i figured I'd rebuild one for myself using 3d printing and servos.
What i really liked so far: for the keys on the controller I used Cherry Brown mechanical switches, they feel great to trigger movements with. And instead of normal potentiometers i used digital ones (the kind that can keep spinning forever), so you don't hit a hard limit when controlling things like the beak.
The musical part came to be as I'm also a DJ on the side, I wanted to bring it with me when I play. So I built this controller unit that wirelessly sends commands to the actual crow. Esing two esp32s for that. Sorry, didn't make the best experiences with wireless arduinos, so went with esp32 instead.
Right now he moves manually, syncs his head to any BPM i type in, and the mouth opens and closes. Lip Sync is the next topic I will look into, but that seems quite hard!