I tried to create a small turtle that would wave it’s little flippers. It did not exactly work as planned. Firstly, it became a more abstract idea of a turtle (a more futuristic interpretation). Although the laser cutting worked fine, the physical motion part was awkward and stunted. I believe that to create a better system for movement, I would need a gear system to allow it to work properly.

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#define DIR_PIN 2     // The direction pin controls the direction of stepper motor rotation.
#define STEP_PIN 3    // Each pulse on the STEP pin moves the stepper motor one angular unit.
#define ENABLE_PIN 4  // Optional control of the driver power.
 
void setup(void)
{
  
  pinMode(DIR_PIN, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(STEP_PIN, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(ENABLE_PIN, OUTPUT);
 
  digitalWrite(ENABLE_PIN, LOW);
   
  
  Serial.begin(9600);
}
 
 
void rotate_stepper(int steps, float speed)
{
  // Configure the direction pin on the stepper motor driver based on the sign
  // of the displacement.
  int dir = (steps > 0)? HIGH:LOW;
  digitalWrite(DIR_PIN, dir);
 
  // Find the positive number of steps pulses to emit.
  int pulses = abs(steps);
 
  // Compute a delay time in microseconds controlling the duration of each half
  // of the step cycle.
  //  microseconds/half-step = (1000000 microseconds/second) * (1 step/2 half-steps) / (steps/second)
  unsigned long wait_time = 500000/speed;
 
  // The delayMicroseconds() function cannot wait more than 16.383ms, so the
  // total delay is separated into millisecond and microsecond components.  This
  // increases the range of speeds this function can handle.
  unsigned int msec = wait_time / 1000;
  unsigned int usec = wait_time - (1000*msec);
 
  // Print a status message to the console.
  Serial.print("Beginning rotation of ");
  Serial.print(steps);
  Serial.print(" steps with delay interval of ");
  Serial.print(msec);
  Serial.print(" milliseconds, ");
  Serial.print(usec);
  Serial.print(" microseconds.\n");
   
  // Loop for the given number of step cycles.  The driver will change outputs
  // on the rising edge of the step signal so short pulses would work fine, but
  // this produces a square wave for easier visualization on a scope.
  for(int i = 0; i < pulses; i++) {
    digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, HIGH);
    if (msec > 0) delay(msec);
    if (usec > 0) delayMicroseconds(usec);
 
    digitalWrite(STEP_PIN, LOW);
    if (msec > 0) delay(msec);
    if (usec > 0) delayMicroseconds(usec);
  }
}
// ================================================================================
// Run one iteration of the main event loop.  The Arduino system will call this
// function over and over forever.
void loop(void)
{
  // Begin the motion sequence with a few back-and-forth movements at faster and faster speeds.
  rotate_stepper(  60,   30.0);
  rotate_stepper( -60,   30.0);
  delay(1000);
 
 
   
}