im thinking about making a model gir from invader zim that uses an ibook to control it. does anyone know anything about motherboards from ibooks and how to get it into a space thats 13 inches by 9 inches without using too much space, and does anyone know where i could get some cheap custom made pieces of plastic?
Maybe DIY. Some duo modders used to make molds of old parts to recreate them with transparent plastics. I've heard various success and failure stories so I don't know if it could be used for your project. Anyways a couple links:
If you can create your won mold, Tap plastic sells the plastic resins you would need. Not exactly cheap - it looks like you can get a gallon of resin and the catalyst for about $50 online. But it would probably be cheaper than getting a plastic molding company to do it.
thanks. the first two arent quite what i wanted, since im not just making a skeleton mod, but the third one is pretty good. and from what ive looked at, professional custom plastic can cost from a few thousand dollars to two hundred thousand.
i forgot to ask, does anyone know anything about making a usb device that can control several motors and can be operated by a script that i can write thats compatible with mac? thanks.
ok. i didnt know what you meant because you wrote monitors instead of motors. i need something that can send electronic signals to motors to tell them what to do, preferably something that hooks up through usb. i already found some servo motors at phidgets usa, but theyre a bit more expensive than i want and require expensive motor controllers. i also need some motors that dont use up too much juice.
:ohmy: im not sure that would work. first, the batteries inside the lego rcx wouldnt be able to power the motors needed to move the robot efficiently for a long period of time, and second, i would need to have several rcxs to control all of the motors and a lot of time to write the scripts for each rcx. but if i can write a script like the one on the rcx and run it on a mac, it might work and be easier to write than the codes for rcxs or a program for the mac thats written in some other programming language, and im not very good at programming so that would be good if that could work. so ill see if i can use that.
that probably wouldn't work. very well. it says on the site that the robot can walk, jump, and wave its hands, which isn't nearly what i want gir to do. also, i dont want a bluetooth controlled robot, so that circuit board would be thrown out or sold, and its casing wouldnt work in gir, so all i would get is a few motors, and from my overly calculated calculations, the motors would cost about $2000, and they would actually cost less than that because i was guessing at a lot of things, so the bluetooth robot would be a waste of money.
Youve got your hands full. You could use servos to move it, theyre cheap. But how two control them with a cpu i dont know. Are you an engineer, cause if not you might need to be to do this mod. :lol: -Maestro
ive been looking at servos from phidgetsusa and servocity, and they both offer servo controllers that hook up through usb, but phidgets are meant for windows, phidgetsusa says that theyre not for linux, and doesnt even mention mac at all, so i might need to get some servo controllers elsewhere.
A while back, the people at MacAddict made (or attempted to make) a robot using an iBook. I think they controlled it remotely through Airport. I think they had a servo controlling a camera, but they may have scrapped that idea. Either way, the iBorg was a terrible failure, and is nowhere to be found on the MacAddict site except for one vague mention on the forum. Unfortunately, I no longer have the issues that cover that project, but I'll look to see if they put anything on the CDs that I still have.
sorry about that, macmod wouldnt let me upload the image.
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