Flexible robotic arms

[Simon68]

As soon as I manage to finish my Disney's Charlie the robot (making him move the crank on his head, walking and still balancing was a little more complicated than I thought...) I intend to start a new project.

Sometime ago I was looking for a movie prop that appeared in one episode of The three Stooges (I was a kid, and it was a rerun of the show - I'm not that old!) but I couldn't find it yet. But searching for images on Google I found this interesting "Electronic Brain Robot" that appeared in appeared in the episode: The three Stooges Have Rocket, Will Travel. It uses that traditional bubble head design common on the 40's and 50's robots, but what catched my attention was its moving arms.... (of course, on the show, it was a dude wearing a costume) but I started thinking about how this could be done in a toy robot that uses this type of arm (like the B-9 from the Lost in Space TV show for example).

Note: You can check the robot working in the episode "The three Stooges - Have Rocket, Will Travel" at YouTube:

Note: The robot appears from the minute: 1:00:46 / 1:16:16

[Simon68]

I bought these cheap toys (they're sort of snake-shaped whistles?!) here at one of those dollar stores and thought I'd use these parts. They are relatively flexible (and at the same time have some stability when not in tension).
The idea is to use an articulated system with perforated sections placed inside a flexible structure, through which nylon threads would pass. I believe that with only 3 wires it would be possible to obtain an interesting movement, what do you think? 

 

The plastic parts will be painted black and I intend to replace these 'snake head' with robotic claws made on my 3D printer...

 

[Simon68]

I started to model the project: instead of 3 pairs of flexible arms, I will initially use only one pair of flexible arms. Each arm will be connected to a servo motor used in RC model airplanes. I still don't know if it will be possible to directly use only the servos. Maybe I'll need to use auxiliary parts, gears, cable guides, etc. I'll do some tests

[Andyman]

I am very curious how this will turn out. Good luck, Simon!

[Pygar]

What prop were you looking for?

[Simon68]

On 4/18/2023 at 7:00 PM, Andyman said:

I am very curious how this will turn out. Good luck, Simon!

Thanks Andyman! I'll try my best!

[Simon68]

4 hours ago, Pygar said:

What prop were you looking for?

Hi Pygar,  I was looking for some sort of probe(?) or lab equipment from some mad scientist that appeared in one of the episodes... It looked like a smaller version of the electronic brain shown here (but it didn't have the arms!). It was located on a table of the lab. But I couldn't find it yet.