Woody the Wood Puppet

Ever wanted a simple, inexpensive puppet? For less than $10.00 you can bring Woody to life!

Woody the Wood Puppet - 25 cms Tall	Woody is a little under-dressed here. He needs a face, maybe some clothes and even a pair of hands. He could also do with an exercise program to improve his body shape a little. His strings will be attached soon. Only five strings - one to each elbow and knee joint and the main support attached to the Head. The string will be attached to the Hand piece using four Screw Eyes. (See the Parts List below.)
Woody's Parts List Arms: 4 x 4 cm long 8 mm Dowel Legs: 4 x 5 cm long 9.5 mm Dowel Body: 1 x 30 mm x 12 mm Moulding 12 x 10 mm Screw Eyes 8 x 17 mm Screw Eyes 1 x 2 mm bolt and nut (for the Handpiece) 2 mm Dowel for neck and Ankles 9 mm x 9 mm Square Moulding Woody's Head - 1 Wooden Craft Egg 2 x Feet (carefully cut from 9.5 mm Dowel)
	A Craft Wooden Egg makes an ideal Head. $2.00 per packet.
The Doll Kit provided the Neck and Ankle dowel. (Plus some spare body parts, if needed.) $2.00 per packet.
	This pack has dowel for the Neck and Ankle. $2.00
You may find Snap Swivels useful if you intend making the Stand and computer-controlled form of Woody. These will allow schools to test a number of Woody's family (made by different students) without having to re-attach every one to the motor arms using string.
	At $2.00 a pack, ideal for drilling holes.
The basic tools. Thin-nose and Side-cutting pliers. $2.00 each.
A brass-coated Screw Eye	The key to Woody's design is the use of Screw Eyes. You will need to use a pair of small side-cutting pliers to open each loop to allow two loops to be joined together. The thin-nose pliers may be used to close the loop after the eyes have been screwed into the wood and linked together. The large eyes are used on the Shoulder and Hip. The smaller eyes are used for the Head, Elbows and Knees (and to join limbs to the shoulders and hips).
You will need to drill holes for the Neck. Use a drill bit as close in size to the small dowel as possible and then glue together with Craft Glue.
	Making the feet is DANGEROUS. If you are not an adult, do not attempt it without adult supervision. If you are creative, you may be able to make similar pieces for the hands.

The next stage is to connect Strings to the Hand piece, adjust the lengths and Woody is alive!!

Woody's first Performance!!

As it happens, Woody is a lot smarter than he appears. Woody can be computer-controlled!

Woody's Stand - Connecting Woody to a Computer.

Having created Woody, the next stage is to build a stand to allow him to be computer-controlled. Two "Stepper Motors" are used. (These were extracted from old 5 1/4" floppy disk drives.) The motors are attached to the wooden stand using 25 mm x 25 mm Aluminium angle.

A "Nibbling Tool" was used to cut out the middle section of the Angle.

You need to attach an 'arm' to each motor. The easiest method is to use 3 mm 'metric' metal-thread bolts screwed into the existing hole in the silver disk already attached to the motor shaft.

Strings are attached between the Stepper Motors and the Hand Piece to allow computer-control.

It may be better to use plastic chain, rather than string, so that you can adjust the length without having to worry about untying knots.

It may also be preferable to use 'hooks' rather than closed 'eyes' on the stepper motor 'arms' to make it easier when adjusting the length of the chain.

Chain to allow adjustments when using the Stand.

Woody's stand.

String

Use fishing 'twine' of the type used to repair nets. To prevent the knots from slipping put a small drop of Craft Glue on them once you have the final lengths.

Close-up of the Chain and Snap Swivels

NOTES

Each of the Stepper Motors connects to the output lines of Simplified I/O Interface. The interface connects to a standard Centronics Printer Port. Any programming language that can address the Printer Port may be used to control Woody.

MSW Logo is an ideal language to use and it's FREE! You can download MSW Logo from http://www.softronix.com

The stepper motors require 12 volts and at least one amp. They will not operate off a nine-volt battery.

A typical 1 amp Power Supply
(Yes, the battery clip is connected the correct way.)

Woody in his finished glory.

Connecting a Stepper Motor to the Interface

With the rotor facing you, the right-hand side of the flat cable connects to the positive line (+12 volts). The remaining four wires connect in sequence to the first four output lines of the Interface. ie D0, D1, D2, and D3.

The power line of the next motor connects to the same point as the first (+12 volts). The four remaining wires of the second motor connect in sequence to the next four lines of the Interface ie. D4, D5, D6 and D7.

Dimensions for Woody's Stand

Were do you get it ...?

Most of the parts can be found in Bunnings stores. The hardest parts to find are the small Screw Eyes used for the Elbow and Knee joints.

The Head, small dowel and other wooden bits and pieces are available in Craft packs from Cost Plus stores.

The Snap Swivels are available in any fishing store.

The Woody Kit? - No. Woody and his family are not available as Kits at this time. If you need help sourcing the materials, drop me an email. I may be able to help.

For more information:

MSW Logo Code - Make sure you read through the section on Stepper Motors.

In its simplest form, the code required to rotate a stepper motor is:

to nudge
   outportB 888 1
   wait 1
   outportB 888 2
   wait 1
   outportB 888 4
   wait 1
   outportB 888 8
end

to spin
repeat 50 [nudge]
end

A Better Approach
The code below uses "half-step" control to increase the torque of the motors.

A delay is needed between each 'output' command to allow time for the magnetic field to build up. The usual MSW Logo "WAIT" command is too slow. The "UNTIL" loop is used here to provide the required delay. The counting value ("i") will depend upon the speed of your system. On a Pentium 200, or less, it may be as low as 1. On very fast system it could be several hundred.

to delay
make "i 0
until [:i > 50] [make "i :i + 1]
end

to nudgeDown
outportB 888 144
delay
outportB 888 128
delay
outportB 888 192
delay
outportB 888 64
delay
outportB 888 96
delay
outportB 888 32
delay
outportB 888 48
delay
outportB 888 16
delay
end

to nudgeUp
outportB 888 16
delay
outportB 888 48
delay
outportB 888 32
delay
outportB 888 96
delay
outportB 888 64
delay
outportB 888 192
delay
outportB 888 128
delay
outportB 888 144
delay
end

to nudgeLeft
outportB 888 1
delay
outportB 888 3
delay
outportB 888 2
delay
outportB 888 6
delay
outportB 888 4
delay
outportB 888 12
delay
outportB 888 8
delay
outportB 888 9
delay
end

to nudgeRight
outportB 888 9
delay
outportB 888 8
delay
outportB 888 12
delay
outportB 888 4
delay
outportB 888 6
delay
outportB 888 2
delay
outportB 888 3
delay
outportB 888 1
delay
end

to rock
repeat 4 [nudgeRight]
repeat 8 [nudgeLeft]
repeat 4 [nudgeRight]
repeat 4 [nudgeUp]
repeat 8 [nudgeDown]
repeat 4 [nudgeUp]
end

to dance
repeat 10 [rock]
; outportB 888 0
end

View Woody's First Live Video
(350KB MPG Movie)
Click here

Woody in his new home.

If you need to operate Woody on an NT, Win 2000, or XP system see here.