Because I said I would...

I finally made some decent headway with my capstone project where I am building a robot. (a life-sized Dalek)

It's nothing too exciting, but I managed to get my motors to move with my motor driver, and hooked up an external audio circuit to my Raspberry Pi, and got it to play music... really loud! The sound quality wasn't terrific, but it will be more than sufficient to serve as the voicebox for my Dalek.

So now that I got the primary components I need, (well, except for my logic converter which is still in the mail) it is time to start figuring out how to tie these components to my Raspberry Pi, (which should actually be relatively easy), and to develop the software program to run the Dalek (which will likely be a royal pain in my butt).

Also, I need to start constructing the body of the Dalek. I decided to use sheet-metal, which will be relatively expensive ^^; (estimated to be about $250 - $300). I want it to be metal, because I think it would make the Dalek look more accurate, will be more durable, while being more lightweight than if I used plywood.
Of coarse, the best material would probably be fiberglass, but that stuff is WAAAAAY out of my price range!

Anywho, in case you are curious of what is shown in the picture, those two big black things are obviously speakers (I'm sure you knew that ^^) and between them is the audio amplifier circuit board. That basically makes up my entire audio part of the dalek (I'm gonna add lights in line with the speakers for the dome lights).
To the right is a pack of MOSFET transistors that I was originally gonna use for my motor driver circuit, and may not be used.
Then those silver things are my motors, with the motor driver circuit board in between. These will control the head/dome, and eye-stalk of the dalek (so the dalek can turn it's head and look around).
Beneath the motors are an assortment of gears, which I am planning to use to step down the rotation speed of the motors to a more manageable speed (that part could be tricky).
Finally, that blue thing is a relay module, which is basically a set of switches that I plan to use to tie the Raspberry Pi to the control module for my electric wheelchair, which will give my dalek mobility.

The plan is to make the dalek both controllable by being inside, or by remote control. Unfortunately, I don't have nearly enough time to develop a custom controller for my dalek, and will have to stick to using my wireless keyboard (shown here along with the Raspberry Pi), to control it remotely for now.
It is also looking like I will not have time to do much of the cosmetic work for my dalek (making it look pretty) by the deadline, but I am hoping to at least have a prototype robot that looks fairly decent for my presentation in about 5-6 weeks.

But I don't plan to stop working on my dalek after my capstone project presentation! I will continue to work on the cosmetic aspects of the dalek, and will try adding more features to it as I go along until I have something truly magnificent! ^^

It is a VERY expensive hobby (I've already spent about $644 on my dalek, and that's BEFORE the sheet metal body!) but I find that I really enjoy building things like this! ^^

Perhaps for my Bachelor's capstone, I will build a pony companion robot? Although that may be a bit out of my league ^^;
OMG SWEETIEBOT! I'LL BUILD A SWEETIEBOT! XP


Well, I suppose that's it for now... wish me luck, I'm gonna need it! ^^;