TotoroCompanion

Day 5 - I found a lot of flaws in my design that I made earlier, but I was able to fix them thanks to parametric modeling. I spent most of my time brainstorming bracket designs and firm supports to keep my servos in place. I’m having trouble figuring out a design for the top servo that will swivel the head, considering the limited space I have inside the head shell. I want to add a blinking mechanism, so that will likely take up space, and I don’t want to add another covered layer to attach underneath. I’ll probably start extruding brackets next and create a physical prototype of the arms fitting with the servo. Requested grant under review–

Day 4 - I extruded one arm of the Totoro so I could implement a mock servo motor in the CAD design. Took me a bit to finalize dimensions and positioning, but in the end it worked out. I’m going to next sketch out (physically) and brainstorm bracket designs for all the motors to later then illustrate in Fusion360. I also have to figure out positioning of the Arduino display screen, as well as microcontrollers, wiring, and power source. Grant request currently under review–

Day 3 - I printed the other half of the snap fit prototype but it failed lol. I wonder if the mechanism requires some kind of objective calculation. Now that I really look at it, it doesn’t make sense for it to fit. Please let me know if you have any suggestions/tips/feedback! I don’t want to spend too much time figuring out how to design a snap fit mechanism, so I’ll probaby start working on the inner shell of the main Totoro body. I need to figure out how I’m going to physically implement the electronics needed. Still waiting for grant approval by hackclub–

Day 2 - (I’ve been busy so couldn’t make a lot of progress over the days,,) prototyped a snap-fit mechanism to later apply to the main body of the Totoro,, I only printed half of the mechanism -> I want to be able easily take apart and put together the outer shell of the robot in order to implement electronics and assemble with ease. Tomorrow (or the next time I work on this project) I will finish printing the other half to later finalize the mechanism and apply it to the CAD design. Also currently waiting for my grant to be approved by hackclub–

Day 1 (did some things on a different day) - setup CAD & project workflow + started extruding the main shape of the Totoro body (beginner in CAD) + completed one ear :::::: I plan on having both ears, and the leaf hat / (maybe the nose,, still deciding) as buttons to change modes. Its belly is going to be a display (Arduino??) with different screens depending on the mode -> focus (with stopwatch?), break / relax, normal (Totoro movements & behavior). I also thought about adding a goal tracker and connecting via phone, but don’t know yet.