Electronics All-in-One For Dummies, 3rd Edition

Chapter 4

Re-Creating a Retro Science-Fiction Robot Head

IN THIS CHAPTER

Remembering glass-headed robots from old-school science fiction

Designing your own vintage science-fiction robot head

Building your own vintage science-fiction head

Staying safe

My love of science fiction movies began when I was a young boy in the 1960s. Yes, I really am that old. I watched Star Trek when it was originally broadcast (fortunately, my dad had just bought our first color television set), and I saw 2001: A Space Odyssey on its original release.

I especially loved movies and TV shows that featured robots, whether the robot was good or evil. The ’50s and ’60s had plenty of them. Two of the most popular robots were Robby the Robot from the 1950s classic movie Forbidden Planet and B-9 (most often simply called “The Robot”) from the classic TV series Lost in Space.

One defining characteristic of both robots is that they featured interesting heads that had cool-looking instruments inside a glass bubble. In this chapter, I fulfill one of my own life-long fantasies — creating my own vintage, glass-bubbled ...