Mecha Papp

HILDE & BÅRD TØRDAL | 2012 | H700 x W700 X L700 MM | CARDBOARD, ACRYLIC SKELETON, ELECTRONICS, ELECTROMECHANICS

For our show Papp 2.0 at the National Museum of Design and Architecture in Oslo we made Mecha Papp, an oversized Papp on constant vigil around the new Papp artists.

Mecha Papp was a very quick project for us. In one week we started with a penciled sketch of the mechanics, designed the chassis and mechanics in Rhino, CNCd the parts, assembled the robot, wrote code and hit the start button.

To move a robot of this size we used a sturdy aluminum motor mount with twin motor controllers and aluminum caster wheel. A linear servo actuator lifts the cardboard box and two more oversize servos move the eyes and open the eye lid.

Mecha Papp navigates with line sensors on the floor and three ultrasound sensors to avoid collision with the audience of the show. The title gets it’s inspiration from Japanese manga where the word “mecha”, derived from “mechanical” is often used for large, often humanoid robots.