One of the most exciting things about animatronics is that the kids get to program something that has a physical form – it is not just on a screen. Hand puppets can be used to give the characters a cute or maybe even sinister appearance. But the true personality of the character is created by the way it moves and how it sounds. In this section we take a look at the hardware for building the actuated skeleton of a figure.
Here are some suggestions for mechanisms that can be built with some fairly simple techniques. The aluminum skeletons are actuated by servos which are connected to the PC by controllers. Often, making figures that work well requires some attention to important details, like understanding fasteners such as nuts, screws, and washers.