Marionette

Marionette Wiki Page

Team

• Jad Carson (Biomedical Engineering)
• Victor Liu (Mechanical Engineering)
• Matt Watras (Electrical Engineering)

Overview

The goal of this project was to make a Marionette that could move in a 2D plane via motors. Our group decided to show movement by giving it 5 different routines with each one being controlled by a button press. To give 2 degrees of freedom for the arms, we used a 5 bar linkage with 2 RC Servos for each arm. We also added one RC Servo to each shoulder of the puppet to allow it to rise off the ground, giving it the appearance of moving its feet. Our 5 routines were:

• Hula Dance
• Jumping Jack
• Conducting
• Left arm pan while right foot tap then right arm pan while left foot taps
• Left and right arm pointing up and going back to neutral position one after another while marching in place

Our puppet was a GI Joe doll that we loosened the arm joins of and we also built a stage for him to dance on. While working on this project, we ran into a few obstacles that needed to be overcome. First, we needed to decide how to mechanically move his arms so that he had 2 degrees of freedom. Second, because we were making a marionette and therefore using string, we needed to take into account how his momentum affected his movement. Finally, we needed to be able to control his movement so that we could have him go through our desired movement, such as pure X motion, pure Y motion, or a motion in between such as diagonal or a parabola.