Nibblers Bunny
As part of Spinmaster’s Zoomer robotic animal line, we successfully pitched an original concept called Nibbles. Nibbles is a one motor animatronic bunny that can chomp paper carrots and other treat and poop them out under his tail. We worked closely with Spinmaster over several iterations until it was ready as a showroom model for Toy Fairs across the country.
A single motor drives all of the limbs: the ears, tail, head, and arms using a series of cams and linkages. The motor is connected to an electronic wiper board (a very simple and cheap version of a potentiometer) and a microcontroller is able to determine which limb is moving.
The ears are compliant so users can pet the bunny without overloading the motor
A paper cutting mechanism is used to cut the strips being fed into the robot. We made sure to recess this mechanism far back and made the opening small for safety.
The chopped-up paper bits travel down a chute and eventually the tail lifts up to "poop" them out.
Nibbles has capacitive sensors in the head and belly to read user inputs. The eyes are also able to animate with a RGB led, which flicker to the sounds coming out of the model.
Nibbles released as "Zoomer Hungry Bunny" in February 2019 to positive reviews.