How to Build a Wall-E From Scratch

Wall-E has become a classic disney movie. Wall-E spends hundreds of years doing what he was built for when suddenly he goes on a wild adventure. Remember the time you watched Wall-E for the first time and wanted to have your very own lovable little robot, well now you can. We’re going to show you how to build one with some of the most basic materials available today.

Materials and Tools

Tools:

Band-saw
Wood Glue
Drill
Screw Driver
Hand Saw
Sanding Block
Coping Saw
Sabre Saw
Palm Sander

Materials:

Wood, Spray paint( gray, yellow, black )
Styrofoam, Foam
Screws
Two Dunkin Donuts coffee cups
Rubber Coated Wires, Motor, Batteries
5 Blue LEDs, Resistors, Solder

Building the Circuit

The picture above is a basic circuit using a 200 ohms resistor, 5 LEDs, a switch, and a 9V battery.

All of the LEDs are connected in parallel to ensure equal brightness and redundancy if one fails.

Measuring and Cutting the Wood

For the sides of the body, we cut two pieces of wood 10 inches long and 9 inches wide, two pieces 10 inches long and 11 inches wide, and two pieces 9 inches by 9 inches. We cut the wood using a bandsaw.

Assembling the Body

We lined up and pre-drilled wholes in each corner to attach the pieces of wood together into a cube. We left the top open so we could insert the circuit later.

Adding the Arms

For the arms, we cut out two pieces of wood (1 by 1 inches) 10 inches long and glued them to the sides of the body. We cut using the bandsaw.

Building the Tracks

In order to build the tracks, we cut out four equilateral triangles with round edges. You can achieve the round edges by sanding the tips or using a scroll saw or a band saw. Then cut out the insides of two of the triangles. You will need a drill press and scroll saw in order to cut out the inside. Then simply glue one hollowed triangle onto a solid one and add any circular objects you can find to make wheels.

Building the Eyes and Neck

We cut a piece of a 0.5 by 1 inch wood to 4 inches in length and then hot glued dunkin donuts cups on each side for the eyes. The inside of the eyes are made of foam we cut out using a hot wire. Then we painted the cups black and glued the stick onto the top.

Painting

The top half of the wall-e is gray, bottom half is yellow, and the tracks we painted black. The arms are yellow and the tips are gray.

Wiring

The circuit was a rather frustrating part of the project. We ran into a problem where the different colored LEDs were not working together. As a result, we chose to use the same color for each LED hence the blue theme. The circuit is built in a combined circuit where the resistor is in series while the LEDs are in parallel. At first, you need to determine where you will place the circuit and then cut your wires according to location and the desired location of the light while accounting for the slack as well. For this prototype, we connected 3 LEDs together for the body piece and t

Wall-E in Action

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gun27qV5tK4&feature=share

Reflection

Overall this project was a big learning process for us. We wanted to use blue and yellow leds but they didn't work together. We would also add motors to the tracks so that Wall-E would move.