New Ears and Tail

Apart from a better sound system need on K9 what was essential was stronger ears and tail. After several events where the ears have been torn of I have to come up with a solution that would allow the ears to survive the attention of hords of children. The problem is that everyone wants to pat K9's head and in the process either accidentally pull of the ears or bend then casuing the stem to snap. The solution was very simple, although it took ages to work out. To keep the ears intact I fitted small flexible tubes between the ears and the drive rod coming out of the head. This allows the ears to be very roughly treated, bent flat onto the head or knocked but then spring back into shape and they still function perfectly. The tail mechanism was treaded in a similar way. You can see in the picture a white spring loaded mechanism attached to the servo which takes up any shock loads if the tail is pulled or knocked sharply sideways against the pull of the servo. The tail has also been modified to allow it to be pulled fully out of the gator holding it so if it is pulled violently it will simply pull out and not damage any of the emchanism driving it.
After an event this weekend with the new systems, neither the ears or the tail were broken, problem solved.