Originally published at: Building an animatronic T-Rex inspired by an 80s Radio Shack Armatron robotic toy - Boing Boing
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I really wanted an Armatron in the 80s, but my mom said it was too expensive. So, I never got to play with one.
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our shop class had one, but never got to play with it. i opted for home ec instead. the robot was exciting, but children with saws have always frightened me
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Cool! The animation is spot on and the sound effects are perfect.
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I was fortunate enough to have one of these back in the day, but to my disappointment it didn’t have enough power to lift anything heavier than the plastic barrels it came with. It struggled when I tried lifting my Hot Wheels or Matchbox toy cars.
Oh well, it was great fun!
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Really great video! Love the original inspiration, the just-jump-in approach, and the sensitive and clever refinements as he goes. Bravo!
It also really demonstrates for me how insanely clever and elegant the original TOMY Armatron toy was/is. Adding more and more servos and tech to achieve the range of multi-axismotion and responsive control is one way to. On the other hand, Armatron did it all WITH JUST ONE MOTOR.
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huh, never know it was just one motor, explains why it was so ponderously slow…
Yeah, we really are spoiled these days. You can buy cheap hobby servos on Amazon for just about $1 each if you buy a 10-pack, and if you want to get fancy and have a computer control system an Arduino clone will set you back about $16.
Lots of opportunities for affordable little projects that would have been much more expensive a decade or so ago.
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That is fucking awesome. Thank you.
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