Maker Micah Elizabeth Scott is using 3D printing to create a cable-bot flying camera so viewers can interact with her cat, Tuco.

Micah Elizabeth Scott is a creator with a knack for designing, tinkering and 3D printing a huge range of projects. However, her real passion is for creating videos that document the process behind her various software and contracting projects.

As a result, she has 12k subscribers on YouTube. But she’s not the only star of this channel. Anyone who is familiar with Scott also knows her feline friend and co-starring cat.

‘Tuco’ is a polydactyl American Curl who loves chasing and fetching nylon bolts.

“My cat Tuco co-stars on my electronics and reverse engineering streams, but really, he deserves his own show,” Scott explains.

During live streams of her work, Scott has a camera fully dedicated to Tuco. However, she felt that wasn’t enough and decided to create a 3D printed cable-bot flying camera.

Incredibly, this means her viewers will be able to control a camera and interact with Tuco themselves. She calls it the ‘Tuco Flyer.’

The robotic camera will stream on ‘Twitch’ with an interactive control. She explains that the design is much like a 3D drawing machine and after an “awful lot” of CAD work and reverse engineering, she made progress on the flying camera system.

She explains more about the design of her 3D printed 1-dimensional robot in her latest video below:

3D Printing a Robot for Tuco the Cat

You could say Tuco the cat is getting more than enough stardom these days. But not without many hours of Scott’s determination and effort. In fact, the entire process was extremely complicated to design, but the final result is pretty neat.

Tuco’s camera will hover around the air, pulled on nylon strings, and controlled by four winch robots in the corners of the room.

Instead of a self-contained robot, like a quadcopter drone, Tuco’s flyer is a robot built into its infrastructure. There’s a lightweight, 3D printed platform with a camera, gimbal, and sensors.

The platform then glides through the room on nylon ropes. She used 3D printing, drilling and a “whole lot of CAD” to ensure that the gimbal could hold a camera that streams real-time, uncompressed video.

The robot itself relies on a network of other robots to pull it around. Scott even designed and 3D printed the winches herself as those available on the market weren’t suitable for her needs. Everything is made from 3D printed PLA, even the shells for the design.

Scott now has four videos dedicated to this project. However, in her latest video, she explains that after a few wrong turns and a whole lot of CAD work, she’s now happy with the latest 3D printed winch.

If you want to check out Scott’s work in more detail, she makes the project’s code and CAD designs available on GitHub.

However, you can also just sit back and enjoy her live streams. Follow her on Twitter to find out when these will be. You can also find more of Scott’s videos from this series on YouTube.