“This animatronic fox can wiggle its ears, tilt its head and has animated eyes. All movement and animations play autonomously and at random.
I’m making a companion bot (think a tiny animatronic friend who can travel to conventions and fun events with you). I decided on a fox as I’ve always loved them. This project has new information and also uses a combination of two other projects I’ve posted, Randomizing Servos with Arduino and Raspberry Pi Video Looper with SPI LCD Screen. I’ll repurpose the information from both of the original projects in this summary but also feel free to navigate to those pages if you want to just focus on those aspects for whatever you’re working on!
Making the Fox Head
I’d never made a puppet head before but I’m pretty crafty and during my cosplay days I’d discovered the material Worbla, which is a thermoplastic that can be easily shaped when heated and has adhesive on one side that is also heat activated. When it cools it retains its shape and can be reheated over and over again. I’ve previously used it to make some pretty cool armor and uniquely shaped props so I thought it would be just what I needed.
That said, I always do better when I have a shape to place the Worbla over, so I headed over to thingiverse.com to see if there were any fox skulls 3D print designs that looked promising.”