"Connor!
Did you forget to clean your room again?"
"Yes."
"Well you know what to do!"
Sigh!
OK.
Well to make our automated kicking machine we're going to need just a few things.
This first thing of course is a boot, and I have this old cowboy boot that I don't ever
plan to wear again and so we're going to use that, although I think a steel toed boot might
be even better.
Uhm.
We'll need a couple of pieces of wood and these will go together like this and go inside
the boot and then we'll, uhm, hinge this on a fulcrum and this will do the kicking action.
In order to automate that kicking action I got this pneumatic tube that the guys over
at Fright Props sent me for winning a contest at Instructables.
And this thing is programable and it can do all kinds of things.
You can program it do do different motions, etc.
So, I think is going to be really cool for some other projects as well, but lets go ahead
and get started!
So
we're going to build our support structure out and that is going to look something like
this; a little bit like hang-man.
And we'll have a support beam that goes here to keep it steady.
OK.
So we want the butt kicker to actuate at this particular point, like so and in order to
do that I am just going to drill a hole through both boards and them I'm going to use this
bolt with a couple of nuts at the end to keep it from backing off.
OK.
So as I mentioned earlier the automated butt kicker is powered by a pneumatic piston and
that pneumatic piston has two air inlets.
One drives the piston forward and one drives the piston backward, and that is controlled
by this pneumatic relay which reverses the air flow.
It has one input and two outputs and then supplying power reverses the polarity.
And these are similar to Pex fittings.
There is no glue or other kind of leak resistant tape or anything required.
OK.
So in order to control the air supply I am going to install this little mini pressure
regulator.
That will connect to the air compressor and then this will connect to our pneumatic relay.
OK.
So the next step is to install this little thing called a Pico-Boo and it is a micro-controller
for controlling Halloween props.
It allows you to control all kinds of patterns and things.
So if you imagine a Halloween prop that just would shake, for example.
This would allow you do that.
It also control sounds.
It allows you to use motion sensors.
There's a laser where if you break the line things will happen and of course we're just
going to use a push button switch to activate it.
And in future videos I'll show you how to do some really cool things with this.
I've got a bunch of ideas already.
So we're just going to wire this.
It just wires into two relays and we're done.
OK.
And of course no automated butt kicker would be complete without a handle and a kick me
button!
This is just a momentary switch that is wired to the switch contacts on the Pico Boo.
When you press this, it simply activates the program.
So it's time to just put it to the test.
I created a little program.
It's hooked up to the air and all we have to do is press the kick me button!
I wouldn't want to get kicked by that!
"Mike!
Did you leave your clothes on the bedroom floor again?"