3D-Printed Drogon with LED Eyes for Game of Thrones

Go into the final season of Game of Thrones with your very own 3D-printed Drogron dragon! The eyes are LEDs that change between red and blue based on cues, such as "White Walker" or "Fire". Drogon will watch the show with you and listen for the cues to change the eye color.

Try building one for yourself and see what will become of your 3D-printed Drogon at the end of the season. Will Drogon stay a fire dragon or turn into an ice dragon? Only one way to find out! Of course you can customize the cues to listen for.

Python written for Python 3.

Check out my upcoming projects at my blog create.botmation.net

Getting Started

Be sure you have access to a 3D printer before starting the project.

Ensure your Raspberry Pi has access to the internet.

Make sure you are wearing safety glasses and gloves throughout the process.

Note: These instructions assume knowledge of the 3D printer, electrical wiring, and Raspberry Pi.

Step 1: PRINTING

Download the 3D model from https://www.thingiverse.com/thing:3100640

Import the model into your 3D printer software.

At original scale you will print a small, palm-sized Drogon.

Optional: You can edit the model to have a tunnel from the eyes to the tail for the wiring. Otherwise you will need to drill the model to run wires later.

Scale Drogon to 150% from original model. This is what I used.

I had to split the wings into two because my printer did not want to do it.

Print out all the individual parts. (May take a week to print.)

Step 2: POLISHING

Use light sand paper or other polishing tool to clean up the edges where it will be glued to the other parts.

Step 3: DRILLING

Drill holes for the eyes.

Drill holes in the main core of the body down to the tail.

Step 4: WIRING

Identify the wiring leads on the LED for Red +, Blue +, and Common.

Cut the leads down to length to fit inside the eye socket.

Solder wires to the leads on the LED. Do not solder or wire the two LEDs together yet.

Note: Don’t forget to ventilate and use a fan for solder fumes.

You should now have a set of two LEDs with wires soldered onto them.

Run each LED set through each eye down to the neck.

Now you will combine the two sets and solder them to a third wire.

Wiring diagram:

Now is a good time to test your wiring job with two AA batteries in series and 450 ohm resistor. Connect COM to the bottom of the battery and test both red + and blue + individually. Both eyes should change colors appropriately.

Run the wire through the main body.

Then run the wire through the tail.

Step 5: GLUING

Now comes the hard part.

Wear rubber gloves so you don’t glue yourself to the model.

Start with gluing the head to the body.

Then tail to body.

Then the legs.

Before gluing the wings this may be a good time for optional step 6. (Using solder iron, gently mend together the seams between each part.)

Glue the wings on.

Step 6: MENDING SEAMS (Optional)

With the solder iron set to a low setting, test iron on plastic seam and adjust iron temperature until plastic starts to melt. Be careful not to go too high, burning the plastic!

Gently rub along the seams until seams are sealed. If the gaps are large, sprinkle some drill shavings from the holes drilled earlier. Melt the shavings to close the gap.

Do the same for the eyes to make it look more normal. Be careful not to hit the solder iron to the LED bulb.

Step 7: RASPBERRY PI

Connect the wires to the Raspberry Pi.

Connect Red + to GPIO 13.

Connect Blue + to GPIO 19.

Connect COM to GND.

Connect USB Audio adapter.

Connect Microphone to Audio adapter.

Connect Pi to battery power.

Step 8: PROGRAMMING

Download python script from my Github Repo. https://github.com/Botmation/drogon

Place the file on your Raspberry Pi.

Ensure your Pi has access to the internet for the speech recognition to work.

Install needed python libraries (Pyaudio, speechrecognition, flac). Run commands below to install.

sudo apt-get install flac
sudo apt-get install python-pyaudio python3-pyaudio
pip install SpeechRecognition

Run the python script.

python drogon.py

Step 9: USING DROGON

With the script running, you can test by saying “white walker” to change eyes to blue and “fire” to change eyes to red.

Feel free to modify the script to use your own cue phrases.