this was a very long process of testing, building, rebuilding, rebuilding, rebuilding…  here is some of that process:

an early test of the leg mechanism.  getting the legs to work was one of the most difficult parts of the process.

first time it looked like a “cat”, even without the tail.  the entire head would be replaced including the speaker.

my circuit used ethernet cables to connect the arduinos (i used two) to the cat.  this worked really well, except the leads on the back of the ethernet jacks were a bitch to solder, and they never stayed in place, so the circuit was shorting out all the time until i taped them together.

this is the inside of my controller.  its incredibly ineffecient, mostly because i was just kind of making things up as i went along.  one arduino controls all the servo movement, while the other does all the sound stuff.  but they share leads on the ethernet jacks.  there were also three separate power sources, a 9v battery for the sound, wall usb plug to power the servo arduino, and a wall plug to power the servos.  i probably could’ve powered everything with the wall wart, but for some reason my old college arduino wouldn’t take power from anything but the usb jack, so it wasn’t worth it to add onto the already ridiculous circuit.  this image doesn’t even show the completed circuit, there are 14 more orange and green wires that i added for servo control.

*i’ll add more images/video of the finished cat after i get video from the show and we shoot the dvd extras.

http://sanniti-itp-papo.posterous.com/indian-puppet-theatre

Blender Herzog is one mean S.O.B, but he sure loves to interview people.

Large marionette Mephistopheles and Faust

See puppet shadow test here
 

A series of transforming puppets – the snake morphs into the dragon and the dragon shapes itself into a rabbit.
Inspired by ‘Journey to the West’ – the story of Monkey God Sun Wu Kong where he has the power of 72 transformation to escape from his enemies.

This puppet performed in our halloween show! He’s a radioactive mutant bear with grotesque super powers and a ravenous appetite. His head was made first and the structure was built of foam and covered with a velvety soft teddy bear esque fabric. He was given glove style arms and a velcro closed panel that can be ripped open to reveal an esophagus and stomach that can allow food to pass through it and allow chicken head puppets to perform in the stomach. This bear’s a creeper and has been accused of pedo tendencies.