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I just realized I never responded to any of these replies! My posting
privledge was out to lunch at the time.
THANK YOU EVERYONE!!!!!
ALL OF YOU HELPED ME TO CREATE THE GOMGILE!
BTW Pronounced - Gaaahmm-G-eye-LL'
Well so much for my phenetics!
Anyway, What a blast it was making this thing, I know it's old news now, but
all of your compliments mean alot to me and it's only right to thank each of
you for your kind words.
I must say this will be the last large scale creation I'll be making for a
while. The creation of the Gomgile has taken quite a toll on me. I stayed up
late, neglected certain responsiblities and generally beat my brain to a
pulp. After 6 months of building I proud to say I really did'nt spend alot
of money on it. Maybe $500, that may be alot or a little by some standards.
Mostly I tried to use the stock of Grey Lego I already owned. When I started
buiding the Super Mech-bot:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=4473
....I intended on building Grey and Dark Grey into the chest and elsewhere
on the giant bot. It turns out that keeping the weight to a minimum of
course was integral to helping the prefomance of the robotic movements. Plus
the thing was so black it was really tough to start introducing an
additional color scheme with out making severe structural changes. Point is
I had a terrific supply of Grey just sitting about. Hence the idea to build
something with all the great Grey stuff I had.
One day I asked my Mecha Buddies:
Hey How about a Mech with buggy eyes and a green mohawk?
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=68083
They said cool! Go for it!
I took the elements from the Insectoids set #6977 and got to work.
My Mom had given me the set for my Birthday. Funny thing is the box became
my Cat's kitty bed:
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=64486
I shared the process with you all by taking progress pix and the like, it
was my way of dispelling the myth that I am from another planet. I use basic
techniques thruout the Mech and I figure just share them as I really didn't
know when the thing would be finished.
Then there are the dino tails! Oh man I don't know how I came up with
that!Sometimes these things are obvious. You just mess around you know.
Well, the back of the Mech has no Arse and the wing-juts are in their infancy.
What's cool is the Wing-juts are mechanical and motorized. They use two
motors that are sychronized via gear cross boxes to provide two ranges of
movement in one flaping motion. That part was tough, it took quite a while
to figure out how to sychronize the movement.
The DSDK in the chest is linked to the side to side or left to right
movement of the head. Walk by and the light sensor triggers the head to move
and beep about with little digital noises. If you have one of the units,
program 2 and 6 work best for the application. I fear changing the batteries!!!
The head has two motors and a Fiber Optics unit. One motor makes the Jaw
open and close in a chewing fashion. A second motor makes the neck lift up
and down.
Both head motors are linked to a cam mechanism so the neck and jaw can move
about in a closed loop which require no intervention.
I was surprised when I started building the head. The geometry involved
caught me off guard. In the nose area the parts came together with little
effort. Really, I just noticed that the spacing was equall to certain brick
distances.
It still trips me out, as fragile as it is.
The chest is an invocation of all things Mecha to me. I always wanted to
make a grilled chest. I happy with the way it came out. Oh ye priase the
Dark Grey Plate!
The waist needed something to set it apart from all the other Mechs I built.
I built the LBB as a design study to explore flexible spine ideas. I wanted
GG to be better and more inovative than my previous works. z40 to z8 via
worm gear and stiff Dark Grey shock absorbers made the setup work. The
Shocks in the front and back of the spine mechanism only soak up the slack
or backlash inherent in Lego wormgear configs. They serve a limited purpose
and in themselves with out the spine mechanism they would be useless as the
weight would surely overpower the puny shocks.
Then there is the hoo haa, um.... sensor array.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=99073
Hey it's contriversial, I'm an artist. I like to freak people out. I'll
report on peoples reactions as they happen in futre Artshows and exhibits.
The Legs came together kinda quick. Once I made the feet, shared them with
you guys made revisions based on feed back I started on the Hips so I could
work my way down to them. At first I just liked the foot design, I knew it
probably would be to risky using single axles to hold the weight, I just
wanted to share the design because I like it so much. Fact is I'll just work
on it untill I find the right setup.
Robo-rider worm gear boxes are found in the wing juts, elbows, knees and ankles.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=50470
Making the hips I decided to use Technic Turntables, it's the right part to
use for the weight plus I had purposely avoided using the turntables in the
upper arms because I am hording them for the use in the Super Mech-bot's
legs when I start that project again. I gave in and used them. I wanted GG
to crouch down like it was tieing it's shoe or like it was getting ready to
run a race. Ambitious, never the less possible if you try. I found when I
made the legs the giant GG Mech of course was tempermental. It wanted to
lean foward to and fro. The system was not complete. Look at the way animals
or people stand. first you have a skeleton, - the bricks and beams, then you
have the muscles - the worm gears, then finnaly tendons to work with the
muscles. In this I found the answer. A lesson learned way back in 1993 while
building the Red Robot. Structure, worm gears and levers as well as shocks
to soak up the slack and allow for movement.
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=50507
I installed a series of "tendons" they imediately worked! I was thrilled! GG
stood on it's own without support!
One thing I need to re-visit is the tendons limit the movement of the legs.
I would like to install pivot levers in the right places to allow for
bending movement already built into the legs. The feet were supposed to have
additional ranges of movement. I decided to go for the sculpture look as I
neared completion. The base of the tendons in the back of the legs connected
directly to the robo-rider worm gear boxes in the ankles. This ended up
decideing to eliminate the additonal function. Although there was one more
factor. Stacking the multiples of movement into the ankels would have made
the turning of the foot look like there was a second knee right in the shin
area of the legs. The addtional movement was to high above the central ankle
area so I left it out.
In closing, I am very proud of this accomplisment. I strive to push myself
and bring my ideas to life. I hope by sharing this others my find answers to
some of the challenges found herein. I suspect this creation is one of the
best things I have made to date. Now while I need a break from building to
get my life on track again. I look foward to bringing it to Bricks West
starting on Feb. 16th. for all to see. I'll still drag the Mechs to shows
and exhibits and post pictures when they happen.
Lastly, I'm home sick today, so there is no need to reply to all of this if
you don't want, I'm just board trying to kick this Flu or whatever I got.
Thanks again,
Sincerly,
Eric Sophie
aka
Legomaster
www.mylegomaster.com
In lugnet.build.mecha, Stuart Immonen writes:
>
>
> From Eric Sophie
>
> I present Gomgile; The GG Mech, a Grey - Green Biomechanoid.
>
> Web-Site:
>
> http://www.mylegomaster.com/id23.htm
>
> Brickshelf Gallery:
>
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=6782
>
> Enjoy.
>
> Eric Legomaster Sophie
> www.mylegomaster.com
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