Restoring an animatronic band

nutballchamp

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Posting here since this is sort of related to CAX.

For the past year my friends and I have been restoring an animatronic band called Electric Mouse Orchestra. We bought them at work off Ebay 10 years ago and they sat in the hallway rotting away. They gave them to me and we replaced all their tubing and created control boards to animate them. We have them set up to animate to any song we choose. Haven't done any cosmetic work yet as their faces are pretty bad.

We were trying to get them ready to bring to CAX this year but not sure if they will be ready. We'll have a separate room with 80's games and recreate that pizza theater vibe. Here's our first test. Keyboard player needs a few tweaks before we add him in. They have costumes and look pretty cool live. There are 2 more characters that are not in the video below.



 
That's awesome. I have a friend who bought an entire Rock-A-Fire Explosion animatronics package straight from Aaron Fechter, and had them set up onstage in his 80s themes pizza parlor/arcade. He put a ton of work into it and looked pretty spectacular. Aaron even came up and gave him a hand setting it all up and programming them. If I'm not mistaken, Aaron's still in Orlando...maybe he could give you a hand working out any kinks.
 
That's awesome. I have a friend who bought an entire Rock-A-Fire Explosion animatronics package straight from Aaron Fechter, and had them set up onstage in his 80s themes pizza parlor/arcade. He put a ton of work into it and looked pretty spectacular. Aaron even came up and gave him a hand setting it all up and programming them. If I'm not mistaken, Aaron's still in Orlando...maybe he could give you a hand working out any kinks.

We have everything worked out. Time is our big enemy.
 
And what's funny is my family thinks I'm insane just for working on the arcade games...

Very awesome of you to be working to keep the band together! :)
 
This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. This is so many light years beyond any level of understanding I have for any subject in the world, and I have a doctorate. We'll call you the overlord.

Though, they really should be singing to Falco's german version, as it's by far the better version.
 
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This has to be one of the coolest things I have ever seen. How much does one of these rigs go for?

Can't remember how much we got them off Ebay 10 years ago. A bunch of us chipped in $50. They were a beast to restore and we still have a lot more we want to do. If we do CAX we have a friend that will loan us high end lighting equipment. I just want to make sure we have time to do it right. If not this year, next year for sure.

I've got plans for some cool 80's songs. Def Leppard, Van Halen, Misfits, Psychedelic Furs, Devo and lots more!
 
This is one of the most amazing things I have ever seen. This is so many light years beyond any level of understanding I have for any subject in the world, and I have a doctorate.

Though, they really should be singing to Falco's german version, as it's by far the better version.

Funny how simple these things are. They just have air hoses that go to valves. We created a midi control board with transistors that turn the valves on and off. That's it! Of course it was a pain in the ass to re-tube them and work out all the bugs.
 
I wonder who manufactured those originally?

Mabye it was Aaron Fechter (creative engineering, the rock afire explosion inventor????)
 
Cool. I just watched the Rockafire documentary a month or two ago. At the beginning I was like "I can't believe this super-hot chick cares about anamatronic bands" and of course she ends up with Fechter.
 
Man that would be great if you get them ready for CAX. They could be the Saturday night concert :)

I love animatronics, the you Tube vids of the Rockafire explosion, and then that documentary about the company and collector was absolutely fabulous.
 
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