Working Nic the Parrot

A version of Nic the Parrot that speaks and whose eyes and beacon light up. Some modifications, particularly to the head
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updated April 15, 2024

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Inspired by Retrogram’s design and as a hard-core Lost In Space fan, I decided to make a version of Nic that lit up and talked, just like in the two episodes where the cheeky Espar robot appeared.

He’s built around an Arduino Nano Every board controlling a DFPLayer Mini MP3 player (get an original one, beware of cheap copies). On the player are many short (< 5sec) MP3 files. At random intervals, he pipes up with nautical pirate-talk and wisecracks, all in a kind of squawking parrot-voice (“Fifteen men on a dead man’s chest. No wonder he died!”, “Ha-ha, that’s a laugh, that’s a good one!”, “When’s International Talk Like a Pirate Day?” etc.) Power comes from four AA batteries. 

There’s a small speaker inside with holes out of sight at the back of the body to release the sound. The wings fortuitously act as a really good speaker cone, so getting the needed volume turned out not to be such a problem as I expected. An off switch is an absolute must, because even with the frequency of his quips set down to roughly one every 90 seconds, he will get on your nerves before very long. You can easily alter the code to make him less garrulous, though. 

I’ve included a rough sketch of the circuit diagram, Arduino code and photos here. I built the circuit on some stripboard, with plugs for the tiny 8ohm speaker (taken out of an old baby monitor) and LEDS. Use 10k ohm resistors for the RX and TX links – solves a lot of problems. The eyes are glass beads I had lying around (you might have to hunt around for something suitable), backed by custom-printed translucent cylinders with holes for the ultra-bright LEDs. These are switched on and off using a TIP122 NPN transistor. The beacon LED is low powered enough to be run off an Arduino pin directly. Take special care when assembling this; it’s easy to get things wrong with electronics. 

I needed to print Retrogram’s parts twice as large, to get closer to the size of the prop in the show. 2x is actually slightly larger than A.P. Tucker’s, but I needed the room to fit everything into the body. As it is, it was a bit tricky getting everything in. I had to gouge out space in the bottom of the body to fit the long battery holder and circuit board. Also, I needed to redesign the head, since the shape was not right and I needed to be able to remove his head for assembly and maintenance. His head is actually flatter on top and bottom than a squashed sphere, but my solution was messy and not entirely satisfactory. For the top part I just reprinted the bottom half but stopped the printer before it closed up the top to allow for a top disk, not ideal. Then I drilled holes to suit the glass bead eyes. The beacon is a Chuppa-chup stick covered with heat-shrink (so it can be painted), glued into a hole in the top disk and with a small white LED, then finished with a translucent cylinder sized to fit.

The parts were fastened together with Superglue and painted bright chrome sliver (a very Lost In Space aesthetic). The hardest parts were redesigning the head, keeping the neck and body firmly together without gluing them and getting a sort-of decent silver finish on the plastic body. 

All up I am pleased with the result. Visitors find my Nic quite amusing – for a while, anyway!

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Model origin

The author remixed this model.

Differences of the remix compared to the original

Designed a new head and neck. Printed other parts at 2x size. Electronics inside to make it talk and light up.

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