Norm Servo

Here's my first* completed Servo puppet, Norm Servo! I decided to go back to the original, silver version of Servo/Beeper from the KTMA years for inspiration. Norm is actually an acronym and the full text on his name plate reads: "SERVO 1.0 - NORM - New Original Robotic Mechanoid - Invented by Joel Robinson - 11/24/1988 - Gizmonic Institute of Technology". So, Norm here I built as basically a Servo prototype unit, so he's got a less-polished design with wires running here and there and other cobbled-together design pieces.

He's actually not a full size Servo, he's about 7 inches shorter than a regular Servo unit. He was cheap to build too, all together I'd say I paid under $20 for all of the parts I used; several parts I've had on hand for years, some were free to begin with, and the rest were dirt cheap. It's a lot easier to build a Servo unit that isn't supposed to be a screen accurate version of the actual Tom Servo. I also put a tiny MP3 player speaker in him, but I'm afraid it's so small and tinny sounding that it's difficult to hear. I'll be trying that feature out again in another bot, this time with a larger, front-mounted speaker I think.

I also designed him with two hitches on his back; I built him for my Joel Robinson costume that I wore on Halloween weekend in 2010. The costume itself (which I'll have to don at and post pics of here at some point) turned out fairly screen accurate especially with a Servo unit in tow that I didn't always have to carry thanks to the hitches on his back and on my costume! I was recognized by many, many more people than I thought there would be! In fact, at one venue I partied at, I won first place in a costume contest I had no idea was going on at the time! I think Norm here deserves a lot of the credit for that unexpected win! (The Apple sticker I put on him came from the iShuffle I won in the contest. The other sticker I put on him after the mid-term elections, lol!)

*I've completed Servo units before, like 20 years ago when I was in elementary school. Unfortunately, they weren't very durable and do not survive to the present.