Step 1: Research. Getting a jump start from previous designs

19 Jul 2023

Honestly, I call it week one but in reality this idea was brewing in my head for several weeks before today. An ongoing process :-)

Mostly it was all about how I can make this design my own and not just another copy of the famous Sorting hat. So I looked on the web to see if anyone has done what i want to do and if they did; How did they do it.

So I looked into animatronic eyes, mouth eyebrow. Available designs....etc.

Eyes / Mouth / Eyebrows

Before I tell you what I finally decided to use as eyes, let me share what I found on the web first.

Mechanical Eye by Robotics Kanti: Website

Mechanical Animatronics software and hardware by Bechele: Video

DIY Mechanical Mouth Assembly by Will Cogley: Video

Animated eyes for ARM Microcontrollers by ADAFRUIT : Website

A one on one tutorial on how to design your own mechanical eyelid in Fusion 360. website

Conclusions of Step 1

I will use EPS32 running a heavenly modified "Uncanny Eyes" script
I will use mechnical mouth that I will design in Fusion 360
I will use only 1 eye instead of 2, this will give the hat my own look.

So I decided to go for the Uncanny eyes in the ESP32 ported version. Although, I need to rewrite part of the code as I have to add a few functionalities. More on that later.

If you want can't wait to play with the uncanny eyes, ordering the Adafruit version might be an option. But let's face it...you want more then eyes...you want a magic hat, right?

Step 2 - Designing Mechanical Parts