Marque Cornblatt: Welcome to the final video in the Sparky Junior DIY video series. Sparky Junior needs a few items to hold everything in place, a few custom parts. There are a number of ways to do this, but I'll show you what I came up with. First is a custom made shelf or table that fits right about here holding the computer and a bunch of other components in place. This can be made with spare erector set parts, scraps of wood or anything that you have lying around. But I actually recommend building it out of acrylic and using solvent to glue it together. It's fast, cheap, relatively easy, very strong and makes for a wonderful element to the robot and because you can still see everything inside.
Download and print the template files for this shelf piece. Be sure to print a 100%, so the template is the proper size. Use this template to mark and cut the acrylic. Once these pieces are ready, place the top piece on a flat surface and align each leg piece carefully along the top edges, so the holes line-up. Carefully run a bit of acrylic solvent down both joints and let it set. Now screw both of the feet to the iRobot Create with the wider edges facing forward and inward. Place the table upright on the feet with the legs flush with the inside edge. Adjust the feet as needed to get the proper alignment and carefully run a bit of solvent along each of these joints and let it set. One of the great things about acrylic solvent is that it sets almost instantly. We built this two minutes ago and it's ready to work right now.
The second custom piece that we need to make for Sparky Junior is the outer skin or shell, like this. Now there are a number of reasons why we want to cover up the robot, not the least of which is safety, we've got power cords, cables, battery terminals etcetera. Without some kind of shell, these parts could be snagged or bumped or even give you a shock. It's not called Sparky for nothing. But just important is the aesthetic of the bug. A simple lightweight shell can turn in ugly pile attic into a lovable plushy funky alien, a storm trooper hybrid or anything else you can come up with. You are limited only by your imagination.
This master template is available for download; it's based on this exact monitor and chassis. It's a good starting point, but will likely need to be modified, if you are using different equipment or making changes to the design. Download this file and open it in Google sketch up. Now, you're going to be tricking the printer a little bit to make sure that the file prints at the right size. All you have to do, doesn't matter how big or how small it is, you just have to make sure that this line and this line are perfectly aligned with the edge of the whole window. So, what we end up with is 15 pages of paper that's printed this in exactly the right size which is 35 inches across one-to-one scale. Tape all the pages together and cut the template out. Now, you can trace it onto your material.
Now that the shell is all laid out and cut, we can start applying the elements that require it for structure, like the monitor, the speakers and webcam. Lay the monitor face down on the plastic, align and hot glue the four small corner brackets to it and be sure to orient the monitor so that the connectors and jacks are on the top edge. Also line up the webcam and hot glue get along the edge of the monitor as well. Now, you can bolt monitor webcam combo through the plastic with your hardware. Center each speaker in place and run a beat of hot glue around each one as well. Now, you can begin to partially assemble the show with the 1032 hardware. The two holes marked along the bottom front edge of the plastic correspond with two holes that you need to drill in the front bumper of the iRobot Create. With the two bumper holes done and the front edge of the plastic attached to the robot, check the alignment of the remaining four angle bracket points. One sits on each side of the bumper and one more sits on each side of the main chassis. These brackets are aligned to that they have one edge and screw hole flush with the plastic shell. You will need to hot glue these brackets to the chassis and take care that they don't shift during the process.
Reassemble the rest of the hardware and fire up the robot in this order. One; turn on the iRobot Create, and then turn on both computers. Two; on each computer, turn on Skype first followed by the Sparky joystick plug-in. Three; on the plug-in, hit the connect button and look for the confirmation message. Four; call Sparky from the control computer and establish a video chat. Five; begin controlling Sparky's wheels with the two thumb sticks. Without about covers it for Sparky junior, hopefully you'll be inspired to build one of your own. If you do, upload some pictures and video to the site and we'll be sure to feature it. Well, thanks for watching, I am Marque Cornblatt.
Johnny Celenz: And I am Johnny Celenz, Good luck.
Marque Cornblatt: You're going to need it, not really.
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