Vent Alien
Hardware
By
@a-fun-gi
- 5 Devlogs
- 12 Total hours
The singing spaceballs alien peeking out of a broken vent
Ship #1
The Vent Alien
The Story
I was in Portland on a trip, and I was walking through the Rebuilding Center, looking for inspiration. I came upon a suspiciously cheap vent. I contemplated this vent and began to have visions of what it could be - if I pried apart the slats and had something that came out of it…. So I bought the vent and went happily back home. Later on I was searching for a 3D model to print for this mysterious creature.
After searching “alien” and scrolling through like 10 pages of aliens from Alien (the movie), I found it. The singing alien from Spaceballs! And then I knew that I had to make a singing vent alien.
How It’s Made
I designed and 3D printed quite a few clips and holders to hold the alien and an SG90 servo. I designed a mechanism that made the motion of the alien moving out of the vent in the way I envisioned it - kind of like jumping, kind of crawling. Because it’s what I had lying around, I used an Arduino Uno to control the whole thing. I added red LEDs for the eyes, and I used a DFRobot DFPlayer Mini to play the song that the alien sings in the movie. I wanted the alien to look like it was dancing instead of just moving statically. I achieved this effect by connecting one of the DFPlayer’s analog outputs to the analog input of the Arduino and mapping the signal to servo angles. To pull everything together, I built a shadow box around the back and added a button to trigger the movement.
What I Learned and What Was Challenging
I hadn’t used Arduino for a while before this project, so it was fun to relearn some of the syntax and quirks. I actually had never used an analog pin on an Arduino before this project, and I learned that it’s not great to connect something to one without a limiting circuit. I also learned that it’s always important to measure like 40 times before printing a part. I had to do a bit of drilling. ¯_(ツ)_/¯
Overall this was a super fun project, and I think the best lesson I learned from it is that a project doesn’t have to have a purpose; heck, it can be the absolute stupidest thing ever. The part that matters is that it brings us joy, and this project definitely did that for me.
3h 47m 59s logged
The final devlog…
Hardware:
I built a shadow box out of black poster board to put around the back of the alien, which I feel like gives it a sense of cohesiveness and gives it a nice background. I also wasted a heck of a lot of time caulking it to the vent for like no reason at all 
. I also added a button to trigger it so you don’t have to reset the board or plug it in every time you need to dazzle someone.
Software: 
Only a bit of software this time. Just a few lines of code for the button and I also made a wiring diagram and made my README much better.
Time to ship!!! 
2h 53m 12s logged
Devlog #4: it’s coming together…
Software:
The main coding thing in this devlog was figuring out how to make the alien actually look like it’s dancing instead of just moving in and out of the vent. I did this by routing the DFPlayer’s left DAC channel into the Arduino’s A0 pin and mapping those values to the servo motor. This worked better than I expected so now it can hit some moves 
Hardware:
I reprinted the alien at finer quality and painted it. I also added LEDs for eyes which is wonderful 
What’s next
I feel like this project is almost ready to ship which is very exciting! The only things to do are to clean up the wiring so it’s one cohesive unit and I am thinking of building a shadow box around the back with some RGB lighting. All in all, one or two more devlogs till we ship!! 
Until next time…
52m 30s logged
Devlog #3: We Have Action!! 
Finally got down to writing some code and doing some wiring! I’m using a DFRobot DFPlayer Mini (long name ik) for the sound because it’s an alien, of course it has to sing. I went with the original song from the Spaceballs movie which I learned is actually from a really old cartoon. Fun stuff.
Anyway stay tuned folks! 
P.S. watch this video with sound on! ↴
1h 42m 7s logged
Devlog #2: A little more designing and putting some things together
I finished designing the parts and put everything together. I ended up using a sacrificed clipboard for the baseplate. Everything worked exactly how it did in the model which made me happy because my 3d modeling skills are not the best.
What’s next:
Next I need to get the code figured out, add LEDs to the eyes, and I think I will probably re print the alien at a higher quality and paint it. It would also be fun to add an ultrasonic sensor and have it trigger when someone walks past.
Too bad my parents won’t let me cut a hole in my wall for it 
3h 0m 45s logged
