Totoro Piñata

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The Totoro piñata was created by me and my friend Philip Chan as a fun art project for our friends. We both enjoyed the Miyazaki film so much that we decided to model an entire Piñata after the blue creature. The Totoro was  made out of a balloon shaped paper mache that is reinforced with a cardboard ribcage on the inside. The ears were made using a pair of tissue warped chopsticks and the feet were shaped out of paper cups. The appearance of fur was created by covering the Totoro’s entire body with strips of blue and white paper. The mechanism for releasing the candy was done by pulling a series of pull strings that released a latch holding the belly.

View slideshow.

KILLTRON 7000

Killtron 7000 is a biologically inspired crab walking robot designed by me and my team at the University of Victoria back in 2011. The success of the robot was determined by how well it can autonomously navigate between several walls and how much weight it can carry. Many thanks to Aaron Gehman, Andy Berry, Tina Hung, Joshua Yin, Eva Sun and Yuto Hori for making this possible. This is my first autonomous robotics project I’ve done using the Arduino so it will always hold a special place in my heart.

See project page.