Published January 16, 2020 © GPL3+

Build Your Own ROBOT MONKEY COMPANION BOT. DEXTER

Ever wanted a fun robot monkey that you can customize wear with you on adventure, or just use as an avatar, well I got the bot for you!

IntermediateFull instructions provided3 days7,678

Build Your Own ROBOT MONKEY COMPANION BOT. DEXTER

Things used in this project

Hardware components

SG90 Micro-servo motor

Adafruit PowerBoost 1000C

Software apps and online services

Arduino IDE

Hand tools and fabrication machines

3D Printer (generic)

Hot glue gun (generic)

screw many

Story

Heya, it's 2020, so let's start off strong, allow me to tell you the tale of my robot monkey companion, Dexter. Lats year was a big year for me entering the eye of maker world, I got invited to talk at hackaday, you can find that video online (its bad I know, but I was nervous) but Thanks to that event, and me being told about it 3 months Prior, I began working on my robot monkey Dexter. Dexter was a 4month Journey of failure. A lot of things worked and did not work and I constantly kept upgrading him, I even up graded him at the event giving him his new custom eyes. What I am sharing with you, is Dexter V4, the most upgraded Version of Dexter. I made dexter with the intention and ability to be upgraded and customized depending on the person. I admit He is still not perfect and I still made my own wholes to add screws, and Hot glued a lot of him, but I hope you guys like him.

Assembly

Fusion 360 STL

So to make it as easy as possible I number and named the parts to make dexter, the longest builds. I recommend Starting with the head. The head is made of 3 parts. Front plate, Back Plate, and middle plate. I would print these 1st. Next the neck and rib cage. These are good to assemble the head to the neck plate that way you can have a piece of him built. Next the servo Gears. I recommend Printing these at the highest quality, they should fit any micro servo but I know they tend to warp if the quality is low. Add the gear onto the servo and add it to the rib cage. I recommend having a servo test and see how the servo mesh and moves the neck.

Head test movement v1

If it works well or good to your specifics continue on. The rib cage also has the same servo placements in the sides of the ribcage you can add servos there as well to help move the arms.

Shoulder joint test movement

I like to Point out in the end I used Ball joints to make Dexters arms because they can be moved and adapt to when he is on my back.

Dexters Arm

I recommend printing the stomach next. It's pretty big and will be used to hold most of the circuit inside it. There are two (stick thingy) that are on the stomach, with a screw, or glue, you can attach the stomach to the rib cage.

Dexter arm and balance stomach test

At this point I would be preparing your circuit. Dexter is cool because he can be customized, I made him in a way you can edit his system and make and put your own circuit in him. One that I used casually, is “ADAFRUIT TRINKET PRO and a ADAFRUIT POWER BOOSTER” with this I can usually move the max around 6 servo at random intervals.

I used photoshop to edit this image.

Next the EARS. The ears are, pretty simple just using a simple micro servo, I attached the servo to the back of the inner skull piece like so.

Attach the servo arms in such a way they would push and pull the ears, and attach the ears to the top part of the inner skull. This gives dexter his moving ear look.

The eyes are next, I am using Dexter’s V4 emote eyes these are actually hacked CHEMION glasses. There are multiple tutorials online on how to hack these and re-wire them. I will link my personal favorite tutorial on how to do this. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xBOrmM351pg.The covers are just laser cut acrylic and they are hot glued to the cover.

Next I recommend printing out the other parts, the butt plate the legs and hands and feet, its easy to assemble dexter, but the print time does take a while. The back of the head plate, I design to have 4 slots, with switches so you can wire up the eyes and servos with the ability to turn it on and off. I usually put the circuit in Dexter's stomach so some of the wires are shown through his next I usually hide them with a scarf.

Oh also his tail, Almost forgot, used these wire I covers from thingiverse (sorry can't find the link, if you know it please let me know so I can give credit), to make his tail and used armature wire as a base so his tail can move and bend and you won't have to worry too much about his tail to hit people.

Lastly I wanted to add what's special about dexter, the reason there are 4 switch holes in the back of the head design is the fact that you can add other circuits to him.

AS you can see I use a lot of adafruit Products.

My current Dexter has a LED circuit to glow, and a touch sensor to make dexter do high fives hahaha.

So here you all are I hope you like it.

Schematics

Code

Random moving servo cde for pro trinket

//this code was done using Adafruit Pro trinket assigning servo's to pins it is easily used for other microcontrolers 
#include <Servo.h>

#define SERVO_1_PIN 3
#define SERVO_2_PIN 5
#define SERVO_3_PIN 6
#define SERVO_4_PIN 8
#define SERVO_5_PIN 4
#define SERVO_6_PIN 10
#define SERVO_7_PIN 9

#define RND_SEED 0

#define wait 2000

Servo s1;
Servo s2;
Servo s3;
Servo s4;
Servo s5;
Servo s6;
Servo s7;


void setup()
{
  Serial.begin(9600);

  s1.attach(SERVO_1_PIN);
  s2.attach(SERVO_2_PIN);
  s3.attach(SERVO_3_PIN);
  s4.attach(SERVO_4_PIN);
  s5.attach(SERVO_5_PIN);
  s6.attach(SERVO_6_PIN);
  s7.attach(SERVO_7_PIN);

  randomSeed(analogRead(RND_SEED));

  delay(100);
}

void loop()
{
  long rand1 = random(50, 130);
  long rand2 = random(1, 181);
  long rand3 = random(90, 120);
  long rand4 = random(50, 130);
  long rand5 = random(1, 181);
  long rand6 = random(90, 120);
  long rand7 = random(1, 181);


  writeServo(s1, rand1);
  writeServo(s2, rand2);
  writeServo(s3, rand3);
  writeServo(s4, rand4);
  writeServo(s5, rand5);
  writeServo(s6, rand6);
  writeServo(s7, rand7);

  delay(wait);
}


void writeServo(Servo s, int angle)
{
  s.write(angle);
}

Credits

Jorvon Moss

9 projects • 250 followers

Hi Odd Jayy Here I'm a tinker, who is design to make gadgets and robots, support me http://ko-fi.com/odd_jayy http://patreon.com/Odd_Jayy

Build Your Own ROBOT MONKEY COMPANION BOT. DEXTER

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Story

Assembly

Custom parts and enclosures

stomach

shoulder gear joints

ball joint arms

ball holder wrist

hands

micto servo gears

butt plate

thy ball joints

Hands 1a

feet

ears

tail

go pro 1

go pro bag clip

test clip

head 1a

head 1b

head 1c

neck gear

rib cage

chest plates

Schematics

circuit diagram

Code

Random moving servo cde for pro trinket

Credits

Jorvon Moss

Comments

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Build Your Own ROBOT MONKEY COMPANION BOT. DEXTER

Build Your Own ROBOT MONKEY COMPANION BOT. DEXTER

Things used in this project

Hardware components

Software apps and online services

Hand tools and fabrication machines

Story

Story

Assembly

Custom parts and enclosures

stomach

shoulder gear joints

ball joint arms

ball holder wrist

hands

micto servo gears

butt plate

thy ball joints

Hands 1a

feet

ears

tail

go pro 1

go pro bag clip

test clip

head 1a

head 1b

head 1c

neck gear

rib cage

chest plates

Schematics

circuit diagram

Code

Random moving servo cde for pro trinket

Credits

Jorvon Moss

Comments

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