micro:bit Speaking Puppet Snack Stand

You will be dubbing this little hedgehog to sell some snacks to passengers!

It's a project you can make with your kids or your students to have fun together or even make several puppets to put on a show.

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Besides the hardware mentioned above, you also need:

Hardware:

• cardboards
• printed papers with patterns
• LEGO bricks
• 18650 battery
• puppet

Tools:

• utility knife
• scissors
• ruler
• pencil
• double-sided tape
• 3m tape

STEP 1: Overview

The puppet needs to be in the centre of the stand, and when it spread its hands, it should not be interfered with by the stand. The mouth and the hands are driven by servos; the stand is made by cardboards; and the decoration of the stand are papers with patterns pasted on the cardboard and some LEGO bricks.

STEP 2: Figure out the size of the stand

We should decide the size of the stand based on the size of our puppet.

Since we are going to make the puppet sit down, it will be about 20 cm tall when it sits, and the length of its hands may be around 6cm, so the size of the stand will be 28.5*28.5*12cm.

STEP 3: Parts of the Stand

Now we start to draw all the parts we need on the cardboard.

STEP 4: Cut It Out

After finishing the drawing, we cut out all the parts of the stand.

STEP 5: Assemble!

Start to assemble the stand!

Step 6: Preparation before Installing Servos

The servo cannot turn all the way to its extremity because it is limited by the complicated structure of the puppet. If the servo goes beyond the limit, the servo will be blocked, and it may be burned.

STEP 7: Design the LEGO Structure

We have thorough assembly instructions here.

First, we put the servo in the hedgehog's mouth. Because the upper jaw of the mouth can move more than the lower jaw, we fix the lower jaw and then control the opening and closing of the upper jaw.

The servo that drives the hands needs to be put in the joint of the hand and the body because the hands should move in a circle with the joint point as its center.

Most importantly, the servo between the head and the hands must be fixed, so we need a skeleton to fix these three structures together.

Finally, let's add the base to the puppet.

STEP 8: Assembling Tips

The servo installation of the mouth and the hands are a little bit tricky because we have to rely on our hands instead of our eyes to feel whether the servo is installed correctly, and the assembling of the skeleton will be done within the body of the puppet.

STEP 9: Decorate Your Stand

Choose a pattern you like, and then print it out to paste on the board.

Build some decorations with the LEGO bricks you have and stick them to the stand with the 3M tape.

STEP 10: Download the Code

The programming of this project is not hard, you can even improve the program if you want to!

Click here to download the program.

STEP 11: Give it a go!

Now you can give it a go!

Speak to the micro:bit and see what would happen to the puppet.