Build A DIY Autonomous Robotic Blimp [Instructables How-To]

Ollie from Pritika Nilaratna on Vimeo.

It’s a good bet that someday humans will live in tandem with robots. From Spike Jonze‘s robot love story I’m Here to social roboticist Heather Knight‘s advocation for their place in the performance realm to the fact that robots are being created to do some seriously silly tasks, it’s really only a matter of time before they’re present in our homes, offices and public spaces.

Take Ollie, for instance. According to his developer Pritika Nilaratna: “Ollie, the autonomous robotic blimp, is a demonstration of the creative capabilities of robots as inhabitants of our society, breaking the stereotype of the servile robot. Ollie is observant, often flying in a manner suggesting curiosity for the world around him. Ollie reacts to voices by excitedly flapping his wings, communicating his friendliness and eagerness to be noticed.”

He is available to DIYers, hobbyists, artists, designers and students under a Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 3.0 Unported License, which makes him the perfect project (and ideal first robot) for this week’s Instructables How-To.

Ollie has an Arduino brain, a Mylar balloon body and a microphone to listen. Some of the other components you’ll need are an FTDI cable or breakout board (to charge the Arduino), 2 micro servers, batteries, wire-wrapping wire, a helium tank, resistors, one switch, and one LED. You should also have some tape, a weighing scale, soldering iron, glue gun, clay and wire strippers on hand.

First, assemble the circuit to match the diagram above.

Bend sculpture wire to create two identical wings, attach servo accessory to the ends and secure with epoxy. Cut out identical pieces of Mylar and attach to wire frames with a glue gun. Leave the foil loose when attaching, so it takes a hemispherical shape when the wing is flapped. Then attach wings to the servo and wire up the servos using wire-wrapping wire.

Plug the control wires from the servos to digital pins 2 and 4 and connect to 5V power to test on a breadboard. Upload a basic servo program to check wiring, making sure both wings exhibit identical motion. Then prepare wiring for the Arduino Mini Pro by inserting servos though two small identical plastic cups and gluing to secure. Make sure the wings can move without any obstructions.

Mark points on the empty “36 blimp envelope where the wings will be mounted. Points should be exactly opposite each other so they provide balance to the blimp. Cover the cups with foil using a glue gun and fill up the balloon with Helium. Attach servo cups to the balloon using tape and let the wires hang loose. Then cover the tape with pieces of Mylar, foil or silver metal tape.

Power the mike through the Arduino Uno (as shown in the diagram) using two resistors. Control wire should be plugged into analog pin 2 of the Arduino. Connect the LED, which will light up when a certain threshold of volume is reached. This threshold should be set to a normal or loud talking voice. Run the program in Step 6 to make sure the input is being received.

Wire everything according to the circuit diagram, attach toggle switch and LiPo battery to the circuit, solder all the wires together and secure with hot glue. Upload the final Arduino sketch (found in Step 7) to the Pro Mini using the FTDi cable. Solder all connections to the Arduino Pro Mini according to the circuit diagram, and attach the circuit to the bottom of the balloon using foil and tape. Adjust with a small amount of clay if circuit is too light.

Turn on the switch and Ollie will flap his wings whenever he hears noise. Submit your experiments, tweaks, hacks and suggestions here.

Visit the Instructables How-To or MeAndOllie.com for further instruction, more detailed photographs, and tips on where to buy materials.