So this little guy started out as a few unrelated things that probably should never have been combined… but I did anyway 🙂
Shartmander came about because Danielle wanted some Pokemon figures for the boys she was nannying- I printed this off as a joke. Slapped on a quick bit of paint and hilarity ensued. Printed some better looking models and they were a hit
Next part came from working on the servo motor code for the little robot project kits I’m working on (going to be building these with the nephews… I haven’t figured out why yet, but the servo “neck” won’t go where I want it to). I was reading up on servo control and got a clever idea… Shartmander + Servo = Danielle’s new homework buddy!
The Neopixel ring is there because what isn’t better with awesome backlighting? It just cycles through some demo color cycle code.
Slap everything together with a couple of batteries, a few wires, and some hot glue and we’ve got an awesome little portable homework mascot!
Shartmander is screwed to the servo horn, servo rocks it back and forth +/- 45 degrees, then neopixel does a quick color cycle. Rinse and repeat. First iteration of the arduino code had a bunch of jitter in the servo during the color cycle, hence calling it dance party. I did a bit of reading and discovered that if you activate the servo only when needed, then disable until next iteration, there’s no jitter and the servo runs smoothly. I might roll back to the jittery code though, was a bit more fun (and twitchy) that way. I’ll clean up both versions of the code and post them up here later.
Charmander 3d print model  and backstory
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