During the 'Creature in a Cup' workshops that we have been giving at the schools in Reading, it became clear that some form of support was required for the servos to hold them in place when building mechanical things. For example, many students wanted their creature to have a mouth or beak which opened and closed, or arms that moved, but simply sticking the servo using tape was not satisfactory, and the servo usually became detached very quickly. The problem is that the servo itself has a small surface area at the base, and so there is not enough contact area here to mount it firmly. As a response to this issue, we created a very simple servo bracket, and 3D printed it using our CubeX. Here is the first version (in black):
The servo bracket (version 1) straight after 3D printing.
Close up of the servo bracket.
Here is the same bracket with the servo inserted. It fits tight inside, so only requires a small piece of tape to hold it in place:
Servo bracket with servo in place
A close up view of the servo bracket with servo in place
An alternate view of the servo bracket with servo in place
Although the version 1 servo bracket did indeed work well, we upgraded it slightly and made the surface area larger, also left some space to wrap tape (or wire) around. This next version is printed in neon green, and stands out better:
Version 2 of servo bracket (in neon green) and the original black servo bracket.
Close up of version 2 servo bracket.
We are currently road testing the new servo brackets, and will post the results in the next week or so.
The video below shows the bracket in use during on eof the school workshops:
