FBI Mail Robot

thingiverse

I never planned to build scale models of office robots from spy shows on FX, but here we are. I had always intended to catch up on The Americans, but didn't get around to it until last winter ahead of season 5. This project has actually been in the works for the entire past year. Building it around existing electronics made me think it would be easier than the Milton project, so I ordered the cheapest line following robot kit I could find on eBay. It arrived very quickly but the package was missing literally 90% of the advertised components. The seller promised to send the rest, but after a few months of waiting for that to never arrive, I decided to put the project off until this winter. Eventually I ordered another kit which was still extremely cheap but also arrived complete. After assembling it, I took measurements and built a rough 3D model of the line following robot, which then allowed me to decide on a scale for the mail robot shell. Initially I wasn't planning to build something quite so big again, but making the mail robot occupy roughly the same footprint as the line following robot would require the proportions to be quite radically altered. I then scaled it up to 1/6 to fit over the line following robot, before stepping down to 1/7 to better fit my printer. The only real deviation I had to make from the shape of the TV mail robot was adding an extra step under the shelves because of the height of the battery pack. You can see the finished bot in action here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2As6K4clplc