Seppuku Bots
A dishonored samurai robot and his helper.
Concept
Well yeah this is a bit of a morbid one. Again, it was a friend who gave me the idea (and who explained how seppuku worked). I thought it would be interesting to make because of how many movements were necessary for the "full" ceremony. I went with 3 steps: the samurai-bot (sitting down) commits hara-kiri, the helper-bot (standing up) beheads him, the samurai-bot puts his head back in place, then it repeats. This is also the first automatonI made with two robots.
Construction
The planning took a bit longer than usual because, with so many different actions, I had to work on getting the order and timing right. The crank shaft had to activate all the different levers at the correct time. After that, the execution went pretty smoothly. I just had to make sure all the parts moved as easily as possible, so as to not put too much strain on the crank axis. Aside from that, building the robots and props also took a bit longer than usual because there were twice the amount of parts to make.
New things
- First automaton with two robots: allowed for a more complex and interesting situation.
- The crank axis drives 3 different movements: I wasn't sure this would be possible because of the strain on the axis but it was good to see it ended up working out.
- Planning the detailed timing of the motion: I started doing this after the maker-bot. It's good to think ahead about how smooth the sequence of motions will look.
- Robot head articulated for up-down movement: I had to hide the hinge inside the chest but it worked out okay.
- Pretty discrete mechanism: it isn't actually hidden but, by putting most of it behind the bots, I feel it's not that visually distracting, considering all the components it has.
What needs improvement
This one worked out surprisingly well to be honest. It was mainly thanks to all the preemptive planning. Still it was clearly not perfect:
- Durability: again, this automaton was for a friend and it broke while I was transporting it. I'm far from being able to mail them away.
- Actions happen a bit too fast: even when cranking slowly, it takes a while to understand what's going on (especially with the strange idea of having the samurai-bot putting his head back on). It's still fun to watch though.
Videos and more pictures
Not many pictures or videos of this one because I had to finish it in a rush before a trip. The videos were done on the spot and I forgot to take pictures of the finished automaton.
