Design and control of an animatronic Aardvark

This report describes the design, construction and programming of an animatronic Aardvark that was built and successfully used in the filming of a wildlife documentary for National Geographic. The animatron was required to walk, move its head, and have as many facial movements as possible. These requirements were met by using hobby servos to produce the movements, and control was achieved with a Motorola based micro controller (the Handy Board). The proportions of the animatron were based on those or a real aardvark, made to approximately 1/4 scale. The final product met all the requirements and was filmed on location interacting with a real aardvark.

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

Department of Mechanical Engineering

Year dc:date.issued

2002

Author dc:creator

• Hrabar, Stefan

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Sass, Andrew

Language dc:language.iso

eng

Handle dc:identifier.uri

http://hdl.handle.net/11427/7717

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:open.uct.ac.za:11427/7717