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In the beginning, Beauregard and Daisy just kind of tagged along when Herbie went places. But in August of 2001, we decided to bring them to life and make them a permanent part of Herbie's display. In order to do this, the bears had to be animated and Herbie's brain was updated to a laptop computer running a 266MHz Pentium processor to control every movement. The original brain was replaced with a servo controller assembly that plugged into the same electrical harness. Everything else basically stayed the same. Oh, I almost forgot Duke, Bo and Daisy's dog...
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A good picture of Stephen with Herbie and his friends, Beauregard, Daisy and their dog Duke... Of course, a few of Herbie's early trophies are also on display! |
Of course, every time there's a holiday, Herbie insists he gets dressed up. Here, for Halloween, he poses as the bad Herbie which appeared in the film Herbie Rides Again. |
And then there's the special guest appearances such as the the Toy's for Tot's campaign at Channel 9, WFTV in Orlando. You can see how much Stephen really hates this duty... | ||
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As for the bears, they start off as a simple frame made from balsa wood and plywood with a few pieces of brass tubing formed to make the arms, legs, mouth, etc.. Speakers are added so that they can speak.
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Each head contains 4 servo motors that control the ears, the mouth and the head tilt independently |
The lower body contains 5 more servo's to control the arms, legs and head rotation. Notice the lead counterweights used to reduce the loads on the servos. | ||
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| On the back cover are mounted the Mini Serial Servo Controller boards (each board controls up to 6 servo's). Since Bo was #1, he has 2 mini SSC's which he shares with Daisy. Ribbon cable is used to control the wiring. | Duke is very similar in construction. He has 5 servo motors to control both ears, the head tilt, his tail, and his tongue which goes in and out. |
The presentation had to be just right so that the bears would not block Herbie. Here, a number of different heights were experimented with to see just how well they would work. |
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Wooden stands were eventually used to give the bears just enough height. They are also used when the bears are sitting in the back seat so that they can see out Herbie's back windows.
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A laptop computer was added under the front seat to control the mini SSC's/servo's and to provide the sound track for Bo and Daisy. A software program by Brookshire allows up to 128 servo's to be controlled simultaneously.
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The user interface is very simple. The waveform (bears dialog) is on bottom and you simply drag and drop the start/stop command for each servo above it to get the desired result, i.e., raise arm, open mouth, etc. |
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The original master controller was replaced with a master servo assembly that is controlled by the laptop computer. Like before, it's output controls Herbie's movements.
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The new master servo assembly is verily simple. Inside there are 5 servo motors, a mini SSC, 2 relays and 10 mini switches. The servo's are used to activate the switches as required.. |
The end result is always the same. Here at Old Town in Kissimmee, FL, the crowd already begins to build... | ||
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To see a full length movie of Herbie,
Beauregard, Daisy and Duke, just click on the picture above.
(Download tip: The movies are quite large (2.7 - 19.5 Meg). Right hand click on the picture and tell it to "Open file in New Window". This way, you can continue to browse while the movie downloads.) |
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This site was last updated 02/13/07
