Vintage AT-AT Toy Brought to Life With Engineering Skills and Xbox Controller

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A vintage 1981 Kenner AT-AT Walker from Star Wars: The Empire Strikes Back has been awesomely converted to be remotely controlled with the help of an Xbox controller. The toy was converted by Star Wars enthusiast Dave Stein, who had the engineering skills bring it to life. You can watch the AT-AT in action in the video below.

Combine an Arduino Uno, an Adafruit Servo Shield, Xbox 360 Controller, and a beat-up 1981 Kenner At-At Walker and the result is the toy I always wanted when I was a kid. If you played with this toy growing up you will probably remember how clumsy it was and difficult to move around.

The goal of this project was to take my old beat up AT-AT Walker and make it walk. There were many different obstacles I had to overcome to complete the project such as quadrupedal movement, learning how to use an Arduino microcontroller, basic electronics and breadboarding, not damaging the plastic components of the toy during fabrication, configuring an Xbox controller to make the AT-AT move, etc...

If you want a behind-the-scenes look at the process of the build, click here. 

This is an Arduino Uno powered Xbox 360 controller controlled AT-AT Walker that also incorporates the use of the Adafruit Servo Shield. This video demonstrates how the AT-AT Walker walks via the Xbox 360 controller controls as well as how the head can move from side to side.

Via: Kotaku