Anand D
Author
Maker and YouTuber Kiara from Kiara's Workshop recently created an impressive, fully functional real-life version of Goddard, the iconic robot dog from the cartoon The Adventures of Jimmy Neutron, Boy Genius. The robot dog features moving parts, including corrugated tube-like legs that compress using four linear actuators mounted inside them, a cable-driven neck that can look up/down and turn left/right using four servo motors mounted inside the robot’s body, and an opening jaw mechanism. She 3D printed the flexible leg tubes using purple TPU and the structural parts using ABS plastic for strength.
The most interesting feature of Goddard is its “plasma brain.” For this, she bought a real 5-inch plasma ball and installed it inside the robot’s body, with the bulb visible through the neck. For the eyes, COB LEDs were chosen instead of Neopixels to avoid the heat issues she had faced in a previous build. She painted the entire robot using a special chrome paint called Ultralumen to achieve its glossy finish. Kiara tested the final build by dressing up as Jimmy Neutron, complete with the character’s signature spiky hair. In the end, she concluded that this real-life Goddard still cannot fly like the cartoon version.
