Introduction: RoboCop Costume

By www.facebook.com/DannyBreslin
About: Father of 5 kids, been doing crafts and costumes for a few years now. I had a little break for a while but back in the fold again now. I'm an engineering Technician by trade and love to create.

This Is effectively Part two . Part One was making the Robocop Gun and you can find that here : https://www.instructables.com/id/RoboCop-Gun/ .

Now Before I start I should point out that Yes I am aware it isnt an exact replica of the Robocop costume but that was due to two things for me .

1. I work from my living room and dont have access to 3D printers , Fiberglass etc so my work is mainly cardboard and plastic.

2. Building a costume for an 8 yr old I learned that things cant be as tight and as streamlined as you want them to be ,due to ease of access and when it comes to actually wearing the suit he'll have to be able to put it on himself as I wont be there .

Armed with this information I decided to capture as much of the Robocop look as I could. For me this would be 3 things .

1. A Working visor that retracts and has a visor Light

2. Gun must be able to come out of the leg

3. Must have a body suit

Materials :

Cardboard

Light Plastic - found mine in a local Craft shop

Seatbelts - Found in Craft shop again

Holdall bag strap

Roll of Rubber - 3m found on Amazon ( Be careful if searching for Rubber when in work :p )

Black Leggings - Only ones I could find where girls - Sssssssshhhhhhhh dont tell my son

Black Lycra sports top

Foam kick boxing head guard - Had this laying around

Tinted Visor - Purchased a moto helmet visor from Ebay

Florescent wire - Purchased from Ebay

Indicator Tape

Arduino Uno Board

Breadboard

jumper leads

ATMega328pu microcontroller (with Arduino bootloader pre-installed)

2x10µF ceramic capacitors

16 MHz crystal

circuit board making Kit ( Wires , copper board , print paper , Permanent Marker , Copper etching solution)

Piece of copper strip board

2 x micro switches

2 x on/off toggle switch

I large servo Motor

1 small servo Motor

4 AA battery comparment

2 x pp3 Battery connectors

Roll of Red strip wire

Roll of Green Strip wire

Roll of Black Strip Wire

Drill with small 1mm drill bit

Glue Gun

Soldering Iron and Solder

Black Spray Paint

Step 1: Designing the Body

ok Firstly I decided to concentrate on the armour at the front or chest part of Robocop. Using Photoshop I drew out the basic shapes , scaled them down to match my sons chest size and printed them out on paper. Each colour was a different layer .

The layers where then glued onto card and cut out to match the shapes. I can supply the PSD File if anyone needs it.

Step 2: Attaching the Rubber to the Basic Shapes

Once I had my cardboard chest pieces I hot glued them onto Rubber sheeting. I then split the excess at various points around the cardboard pieces so it could be folded over glued and duct taped at the back. Because these are going to be attached to the top and layered on top of each other I didnt care what the back looked like.

Step 3: Attaching the Shapes to the Suit.

Because I dont have my wee boy staying with me 24/7 I had to build a fake body to work on . This was done using my wee boys dimensions and packing foam. I created a ribbed type pattern around the midsection of the suit using strips of rubber sewn on top of each other in a layer effect.

I then lay my rubber armour on top with the ribbed effect visible underneath.

I decide to create a sort of centre piece for the chest area out of foam. So I get some couch foam I had laying around and cut out a basic shape but leave two long sides so it can be held in place by the chest plates. These where roughly created as I thought when sprayed black and on the suit it wouldn't be that noticeable.

When this was done , the foam was sprayed black and placed on top of the armour with the two chest pieces hot glued and also sewn into place.

Basic Armour complete - not its time to get the Helmet working.

Step 4: Preparing the Helmet

Initially I tried to use a 4 phase motor then 2 together but these did not have the torque required to lift the visor. So I had to go for a Medium Servo Motor.

First I had to program an Arduino board that when a micro switch was pressed the visor rotated forward to the desired location - waited 2 seconds then light the Visor LED Wire . When the micro switch was pressed again it would rotate the visor to the back of the head and the LED Wire would turn off.

If anyone want this code I can send it , this was very tricky to do and took a lot longer than I realised to get correct.

With my code now working I set on creating the Helmet. The Kick boxing helmet was used as it was perfect to protect my son from any electrics or physical components needed for the visor and also it was thick enough to cut into to insert the Servo.

I cut out the area needed to insert the servo on one side of the headgear. and drilled through the other side where my bolt would run through to hold the other end of the visor and allow it to rotate.

Next I spray painted the headgear black

Step 5: Testing the Visor LED and Servo Motor

I bought an LED Wire from Ebay . It was supposed to be red but was actually pink when lit. I wrapped the wire in red Indicator Tape ( Used to quickly repair broken brake lights on cars ) until i got the shade of red I wanted. This was then attached to the inside of the visor and using black insulating tape i masked the led so it could not be seen from the inside of the visor.

The only problem with this wire was that i couldn't put a current to it and it would work. It came with its own mini transformer circuit. I realised very quickly that I would need to include this mini circuit into my own. So I removed it from its casing and replaced the points connected to the battery with a positive and negative wire I would attach to my Arduino later on.

For now I tested it with a 3 volt battery connected by crocodile clips.

Next I connected the Arduino board to the motor which has now been fixed to the helmet and without the visor ran tests and tweaked the code to get the results I required .

Putting it all together was next ................. Gulp :o

Step 6: Assembling the Helmet

I now have the visor working and the motor working and fixed. Now it was time to put it all together and make it free standing .

Initial tests showed how it would work and it worked effortlessly but I realised it wasnt going down far enough on his face . that was an easy adjustment.

Once that was fixed it was time to build the arduino and the led transformer into a plastic box ( I bought a PSU box in maplin ) and then like the motor embed this into the helmet. This time at the back of the head.

From this box I connected the LED and the motor and also had two connecting set of wires one with a male and one with a female connecting jack. these where threaded through the edge of the helmet and would come out again just below the left hand side of the helmet ready to be attached .

One was for the connection to the switch and the other a connection to the power. Both of which would be held in a box harness which you will see later on.

Step 7: Making the Gun Compartment

I want the gun compartment to open and close so I decided to build it around the robocop Gun I already built and then work a way into fixing that onto the costume. To do this is knew I needed another arduino chip, switch and Servo motor.

First though I had to build the compartment.

I lay the gun flat on a piece of cardboard and cut out the minimum shape needed for it to fit inside. I then made sides all around except for the top as i figured it would obstruct his hand reaching in.

Once that was done i added extra height so i could attach my mini servo which will open and close the gun compartment. this was then fed through a hole at the bottom and attached.

I realised with the movement of the servo Id need a sturdier base to hold the motor so I reinforced it with plastic Sheeting . then cut out my lid compartment and and extra piece of plastic to secure the walls on the motor side. (Ignore the wood in the pictures I did consider this but it was too bulky )

on the inside I placed foam on the excess areas to hold the gun in place.

Now it was time to attach the door. It is held onto the motor quite simply using cut garden wire threaded through the holes in the servo arm and into the grooves of the plastic. The top of the door was held in place by a thin bolt pushed through the plastic lip on the top.

The Arduino code to make the gun work using a micro switch was created ( Again available if needed ) and then tested.

Step 8: Making the Battery Housing and Home Made Arduino Housing.

As I was using my Ardunio board inside the helmet I had to make my own one for inside the housing to control the gun compartment, The process was the same as I have already explained in my Robocop Gun Inscrutable so see here: https://www.instructables.com/id/RoboCop-Gun/ if you need to see how the board is created . PCB files are available if needed.

To power the gun compartment motor I needed a 9volt battery and to power the LED and helmet motor I needed 4 AA Batteries. This was considered when I went to build my housing.

So firstly I had to match the compartment so it looked like the gun housing complete with lid covering. I inserted my box housing for my Arduino circuit and then my batteries to judge how much room I would need. I then cut out the excess shape required in foam and pushed into place.

What I noticed I dont have any pictures of is my switches and on/off rocker switches .....on top of my compartment housing I have 2 micro switches followed by two on off rocker switches.

One micro switch would control the gun compartment and the other the helmet. The rocker switches would turn on or off power to the switches and the boards as i realised that the arduino board draws power if constantly connected to the battery ( found this out after batteries only last a few hrs on the RoboGun)

I made a compartment on the battery side so I could open and replace the batteries if needed . It was held together by snap clip buttons sewn on.

with my switches in place and my batteries and circuit also in place the lid was sealed shut and a seatbelt piece was attached ready to be put onto the harness.

Step 9: Making the Harness and Attaching the Gun Compartment and Battery Housing

The harness is made up of a holdall bag carry strap which was shortened to fit around my sons waist. It was ideal as it had a connecting clip on both ends so could be easily clipped on and off at the front.

On each side of the clip i created a shoulder harness out of cut seatbelt sewn in. this would help carry the gun and battery compartment.

Next I attached both compartments one to each side. I ran the wiring for the gun compartment from the battery housing along the back of the harness into the motor.

At the bottom of each compartment I included a rubber sheet which would be stretched around each leg and Velcro attached at the back of the leg. this is hoped would give it a more attach look and extra stability.

The lead connections for the helmet and visor where ran up along the left side of the harness and out the top with another male and female connector at the ends.

Step 10: Assembling the Suit

Now Im almost ready to assemble the suit . First I realised I need a neck covering so I purchased a diving headgear piece and cut off the top so it only goes up as far as my sons ears. ( I realised later on it was slightly too big as you can see from some of the pictures so I attached velco to the back on the final day and pulled it up against the back of the helmet this made it a lot better )

The Arms I decided to give him muscles these where cut out of foam and stuffed down his top.

His neck piece is put on.

This harness is put on. it is attached to his top using velcro seen in the images.

Next his armour is put over his head and stuck to the harness again with velcro and the connecting leads for the helmet pulled through the top of the armour.

Now the extras that again i forgot to photograph on their own.

First the bottom of the arms pieces , these where just cut from rubber wrapped around his arms and attached at the back with velcro. near the elbow was padded with foam to give it a cone type shape.

Then to cover the belt and any exposed wiring I designed a sort of Cod piece i think its called and this attached to the harness and the leggings with velcro.

At the bottom of the legs I did something similar as with the arms only it was backed with cardboard and wrapped around and again velcro held it on at the back. detailing was added to the front of the legs and the arms.

I added shoulder pads and knee pads . ignore the very large shoulder pads in these pics i hadnt trimmed them down at this point and in the finial video you will see next he forgot to attach them as he went to school lol .

An ocp sign was made and a police badge sprayed black and attached to the chest of the armour.

Finally the helmet is put on and connected to the harness using the connectors.

Step 11: Its Now Complete

Below im going to show a few videos of the suit. unfortunately either due to my camera or the lighting in both the kitchen and outside the next morning the LED visor light cannot be seen very clearly but I can assure you it is there and working.

There where a few videos taken as I couldnt seem to get a video to show everything working properly at once lol

Working Test one : the flying gun Test

Working Test Two : The Gun compartment Jam

Working Test Three : The Helmet just came down before the camera started

And Lastly the Walk to school fancy dress the next morning ( Which He won :) ................. )