Bender

Jan 102012
 

I got an email asking how my Bender was doing and if I had done any additional work.
I have and here is an update.

Bender’s body

compared to this

I built up the body from the cylinder of card and used foam core to add ribs all around the body, giving the slope effect to the body, and insulating foam filler to fill the gaps. A cone shape of card covers the neck area.
Still trying to figure out what to do with the mouth area.

I wanted to try something different when doing Bender’s head and so I used Google Sketchup to make a dome the right shape and a plug-in to slice the image into a 4×4 shape.
Then I printed the shapes out and glued them on to foam core material.
This was the hardest part. I cut out the shapes in the foam core and slotted them together. I then get this sort of matrix shape.
The main issue I had was printing in scale, as it sort of changed size ever so slightly I think I managed to cover up the small anomalies okay. A side issue is that it is very difficult to get good detail out of this method.
Here is a close up of the head.

The next step will be to cover the head holes with paper mache and smooth them down.

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Nov 162007
 

I finished the eyelids a few weeks ago and they just do not look quite the way I want them to look. So after being cheesed off at the lack of success with Bender’s eyes lids I have knocked him back to a priority #2.

However work on my new project is coming strong, the legs and torso are all together and there will be lots of hand sanding in my future.
I have made plans to what he will do….
The electronics will be taken care of easily. I will use some of the PCBs I created for the scale Dalek I made.
The PCBs were designed to have several functions
one was to control a couple of servo motors and interface with the SRF05. others were just more generic input outputs. More information about these can be found on my website (look to the right for a link to geek white north website) I will be adding in some other generic lighting effects.

Possibly sound and possibly a voice recognition feature. These two have yet to be worked out and they would be more for my own personal fun than anything else.

Bender will certainly continue but I hate spinning my wheels so much. So it will not be continued for a while.
If you are interested in other versions of Bender …check the links to the right.

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Aug 292007
 

Benders eyelids are still not complete, they are not coming out quite how I want them to. This week I took some time off from thinking about my Bender project, progress is a little slow at the moment and I find taking time away and thinking about something else helps refocus things. My mind was [...]

Aug 122007
 

I saw this link on Friday http://www.asciimation.co.nz/bender/. It is a Bender prop that contains his brewing equipment in his stomach. The only thing more apt would be a cigar humidor. No cigars here so that would be pointless.So I was thinking if my prop robots could also do a useful job, as well as just [...]

Mar 192007
 
Doh! It's Bender's head.

I have a very basic Bender head with the welding glasses and mouth.This is only a dry fit, nothing is glued or finalised yet.There is a lot of sanding and filling to do.I am going to work on a suitable placement for the servo motors.At the moment I need one for left/ right movement of [...]

Mar 152007
 
Benders shoe size is 58?

No this is not a photo of the moon…. I have got my first foot or is it shoe for Bender. It recently came out of the mould.I used a large sieve as the mould.The material used is instant paper mache, the type you buy from a hobby shop and looks like a brick and [...]

Mar 072007
 
Bender what a Doll

OK so I have officially passed the point where I can announce my newest project is a full scale Bender from Futurama.I think I can do it given the materials and concepts I have tried out. The biggest issue is that Bender has whatever gadgets the animators give himHere is my initial scale model of [...]

Feb 202007
 

I have been so busy working on different parts of the head. I seem to do a little here and a little there and not really accomplishing anything I have been bogged down in the mechanics of teeth, eye lids and heads. I am trying various materials to cover the eyes when the eye lids [...]

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