Dancing Baby Groot

[Aslinn]

Hi,

Recently, Guardians of the Galaxy came out and with it the hysteria that is baby Groot dancing to Jackson 5’s “I Want You Back”. I have seen someone make their own using a "Movin' and Grovin'" Flower (found here: http://ow.ly/Amo3O). Ideally, I would love to just buy one of these hideous flowers and take it apart like the other person...But there now seems to be none of these things (except one for about $270) on ebay and I cannot seem to find a poor-man's version. I was thinking making something that would wiggly around wouldn't be too hard, since as a kid I was able to make circuits, Lego cars that moved etc. But I may be wrong and it might be complicated and expensive to make something that can "dance".

I thought I would ask people that might actually know. I am keen to make a little dancing Groot. Here is a video of the person who made one:

I won't post the actually movie clip of it since some of you might want to see it in the cinema for yourselves.

Thanks for any help!

 

[Arouse1973]

Over in the UK in the 80's we had something called Dancing flowers. Here is a circuit I have just drawn for you which is what is used for the Dancing Flower. It might be of use to you also. It has a microphone, audio amp and motor drive transistor.
Adam

 

[KrisBlueNZ]

The thing in the video looks like it's driven by a motor with a gearbox to slow it down, mounted vertically, driving a piece of stiff wire that has been bent into a staggered shape like the picture below, with the figure built around it. I guess it would need some kind of low-friction sheath around the wire so the wire could rotate while the figure just gyrates. Someone with some mechanical experience could explain the details.

 

[chopnhack]

It almost seems to me that there are three joints. The wire drawing Kris provided is good, but I think there might be another bend (maybe 180 degrees out of synch with the other lobe). That could better explain the gyration that is seen. I didn't listen to the audio, but I guess the speed of the rotation was timed to the music.