The Guardian Robot
This creature is one of the main "bad guys" in the video game, Zelda: Breath Of the Wild. It has six legs and a deadly laser beam that shots out from the singular eye. It can certainly do some major damage to our hero, Link, but is no match for the Master Sword.
3D Printing Articulating Joints
This guardian robot was designed and 3D modeled by Steve. He shared his design on Thingiverse as a free download. The head freely rotates apart from the body and the limbs are made up of segments, so they can articulate. The main body and head are printed in place!
After printing the Maker Faire Action Robot Figure my son and I sat down to design our own robot... My goal was to print the robot in as few parts as possible while ensuring that all of the joints printed cleanly.
What I like most about the design is how well it's optimized for FDM 3D printing. No supports required and minimal material for infill. The head, joints and parts of the body are hollow, so it's not using up a whole lot of material. Another benefit of hollowed parts allows for integrating electronics.
Add LEDs!
As this was mostly a weekend project, I was inspired to add LEDs to really make it come to life. I started out by drilling out a hole in one of the articulating joints and threaded wires through each of the segments that make up a limb. It worked out nicely, so I figured I'd document the project.
Prerequisite Guides
If your new to electronics and working with LEDs, I suggest you walk through the following guides to get basics of wiring and soldering. The following guides will walk you through setting up LEDs.
Components
For this project, I used six 3mm LEDs, a breadboard PCB, JST breakout and a battery. No micro-controller necessary! Full list of parts are linked below.
Tools & Supplies
To put together the electronics, we just need a few tools like a soldering iron and some wire cutters. But using a panavise and helping third hands just makes things easier.
