K9, occasionally written as K-9 or K•9, was the designation given to a series of intelligent, dog-like robots who served as companions of Professor Marius, the Fourth Doctor, Leela, Romana, Sarah Jane Smith, Luke Smith, and Starkey.
There were four versions of K9, Mk I, II, III, and IV.
K9 addressed whoever they were given to as “Master” or “Mistress” depending upon their gender, and used the formal “affirmative” and “negative” rather than “yes” or “no”. They were programmed to be both loyal and logical, with a penchant for taking orders literally, almost to a fault. Their striped collars mirrored the Fourth Doctor’s trademark scarf.
In the script, K9 was simply described as a “personal Komputa [sic] which is like a tin dog on wheels”, and was envisaged by Bob Baker and Dave Martin to be ‘performed’ by a smaller actor in a dog-shaped suit. The effects designer assigned to this story, Ian Scoones, did a series of preliminary sketches, the first of which looked somewhat like a fierce armoured Doberman, but due to the heavy workload of miniatures requirements for the serial, he had to hand the final design and building of K9 to his assistant, Tony Harding.
Harding had only two weeks in which to draw up plans for the machine; his main brief was that it should not look as if there were a man inside. This meant that “the Dog” (by which the production crew affectionately referred to K9) had to be remote-controlled.
Harding’s first design sketches were not that different from K9’s eventual look. From this a rough form test model of the basic shell was made, After assessing the different requirements the Dog needed to perform for the story; e.g. tail wagging, head movement, gun and probe etc., it was realised that the motor for these functions would have to be housed in the head. The original moulded head, therefore, had to be made larger to incorporate all the electronics for this. Once the final shell was made, the electronics could be fitted. The mechanics of K9 included rotating ear probes, telescopic ‘eye’ probe, extendible Computers and Doctor Whonose, flashing lights on the top and the ‘eye’ panel, waggling tail antennae, and ticker-tape tongue. The head could also move up and down. The shell was painted in gold/grey metallic. Around K9’s neck was a tartan collar, from which hung a silver disk. Surprisingly there was nothing engraved on the disk, not even K9’s name!
K9 was operated by effects man Nigel Brackley using a radio-control unit. The chassis housed his battery power source, servos, and motor. One of the two steerable front wheels was connected by the chain drive to the motor. One major problem with K9’s radio control was that it operated on the same wavelength as the studio cameras, causing several delays in the studio when K9, receiving jumbled signals from the cameras, went in the wrong direction and crashed into the set!
K9 was originally driven by a chain drive. Unfortunately, this was rather noisy to the extreme that composer Dudley Simpson was forced to compose loud incidental music for scenes that featured K9. One example is in The Sun Makers, where K9 is ‘sneaking silently’ up to a guard. We, the audience, can hear the loud whine of the motor, and the crashing music while the guard stands completely unaware of the ‘danger’ behind him!
In terms of TV continuity, there have been three separate K9s but in reality, there has been only one, which has been repainted and rebuilt several times over the years. K9 Mark One was written out of the series in The Invasion of Time, staying behind on Gallifrey to look after mistress Leela. There was an ulterior motive for this. The special effects designers wanted to rebuild K9 during the recess between seasons. It would have been a cheat to not explain the difference in K9’s appearance in the opening story of the following season, so a simple scene where the Doctor produces a box containing the components for a new K9 was added to the end of The Invasion of Time.
While the shell remained the same, the interior was changed. This new K9 was given a rubber belt in place of the chain drive. However, valuable studio time was lost because the drive belt tended to snap.
While the cosmetic changes were minimal (including the new metallic charcoal paint-work), in terms of series continuity K9’s character underwent a vast change. Gone was the product of 5000 AD technology, as was the case with Marius’s version. This new K9 was a product of the Doctor’s own technology and values. The gun was now only capable of stunning – not killing – and K9 now responded to a dog whistle. K9 also featured a vast memory bank, seemingly a mixture of the Mark One model, the Doctor’s own memory and knowledge, and that of the TARDIS.
K9 MI’s model also built around this time was a lightweight duplicate shell. This manageable prop was a necessity for scenes where K9 was to be carried by actors because the motorised version was far too heavy. Although the Mark Two K9 had a stronger motor, on its first location filming it still had to be either placed on hidden tracks or pulled along with string. So much for an improved drive system!
The second K9 lasted until the end of Season 17. The main operator was Nigel Brackley, who handed the task onto Mat Irvine for Season 18. Before recording for the new season started, Irvine and his assistant Charlie Lumm undertook a complete overhaul on K9 which was why he was written out of the main story to allow time to work on the machine.
The entire inner workings were stripped once again and over two weeks a new drive and power system were installed. The new mechanics of K9 included larger wheels in conjunction with front and back-wheel drive, while the radio control was updated to be more reliable.
A year later, K9 was given a brand new coat of paint (this time a metallic blue) plus a handle on the top of the shell to make carrying him easier, for his appearance in the K9 and Company – A Girl’s best friend.
K9’s distinctive voice was first provided by actor John Leeson. For The Invisible Enemy, Leeson’s voice was treated with a modulator to give it a more mechanical lilt, but for subsequent stories, he was able to provide the required distortion naturally.
The prop had 3 colours. He was a kind of gold/grey colour from The Invisible Enemy to The Invasion of Time, a darker grey from The Ribos Operation to Warriors Gate and the blue/grey colour scheme from K9 and Company – A Girl’s Best Friend onwards. More details on the K9 Timeline page.
- Setting up BlueOS for a Remote Operated Robot
BlueOS is Blue Robotics Raspberry Pi software to control ROVs, it combines the functionality required to control robots and low-cost hardware - Building up Ian Hughes’ K9 BodyIan Hughes has done a lot of work on making a 3D-printable K9. Details of Doctor Who’s K-9 and other science-fiction models can be found on his Patreon page. I am currently working on printing the external parts for the main body, The parts are printed on our Prusa MK3 3D printer using a mix of random PLA (Polylactic acid) filaments. However, I am mostly using PLA+ from eSUN. I have managed to get the bottom ring printed out so far, this is the sections at the bottom edge of the image to the right. Unlike the diagram to the… Read more: Building up Ian Hughes’ K9 Body
- #Makevember Post 02 – K9’s BackToday’s Makevember There seems to be very little consensus on the arangement of the colours of the buttons on the back of K-9, K9 has a 4 x 3 array of buttons on his back, I am using this image Binary kitten got me from the k9 at the Doctor Who Experience in cardiff as my guide for the lay out of the colours. I am going to have to print the back for my Remote Controlled K9 in multiple parts, so for today’s Makevember post all I need is the 3D design finished and ready to print, and the… Read more: #Makevember Post 02 – K9’s Back
- #Makevember Post 06 – K9’s Back!I missed a Makevember post yesterday, and the one for today is going to be quite virtual again… Last time I did a post on K-9’s Back it was to work out how to read the buttons, and to do a first draft of the CADing up for the 3D Printed plastic part, This time its for the LEDs: The 12 LEDs are ‘Charliplexed’ so they only require 4 output lines on a micro controller.
- Re-bulbing K-9’s back buttonsA while ago I picked up these buttons for my Dr Who’s K-9 robot from AliExpress, Hobby Components have similar available online, The ones I purchased are SPDT with a 24 V DC incandescent bulb in them, regardless of the button colour they are all illuminated with a white incandescent bulb, because I want to use them with an Arduino microcontroller, I am swapping the bulb for LEDs in the same colour as the switch front: I am now ready to print the Back of K9 and I have found out that Bob is going to get his CNC machine… Read more: Re-bulbing K-9’s back buttons
- Can you guess what it is yet?First test prints of my small K-9 head on our new Prusa 3D printer.
- The eyes have it.After the print yesterday, I wanted to know what the 100% sized eyes would look like. Having also thought a bit more; I can think of a better way of constructing the head, so that is back to CAD for a re-design. The 100% eyes seem to have printed only one layer in the in-fill part, so that will want to be a bit thicker.
- How to use 80/20 (2020 T-Slot) and other extrusions in Fusion 360I have started designing assembles in Fusion 360 using T-Slot, a lot of head scratching on how to make use of it at arbitrary lengths in my designs… I started by making a 20mm length of T-Slot as its own model in Fusion 360; This is model has all of its materials and properties defined, as well as dimension origins added in additional sensible locations. If you download either the T-Slot model or the 8mm stainless rod model, you can treat them them the same once they are imported. I have put together a quick video showing you how to… Read more: How to use 80/20 (2020 T-Slot) and other extrusions in Fusion 360
- John Leeson’s Doctor who’s k9 lockdown interviewI came across this video via the K9 Facebook group, it was published a while ago, when I get a chance I will sit down and listen to it.
- K9 earsAfter having a go at assembling the ears printed in the [[blog:k9_nose_gun|last post]], I decided to have a go at making something a little easier to assemble. [[wiki:projects:k9:reference:mat_prentis|Mat Prentis]] assembled this guide that gave me the dimensions below: Heading into Fusion360 I generated the following model: [[tag:thinkl33t]] Sliced it and sent it to his Photopolymer 3D printer for me: I managed to get these photos of the first one I got printed: However, the second one failed: If you want to make use of the files they are available for download: ear.f3d ear.stl
- 3D Print K9I have been trying to design a K9 for 3D printing for a while, even using Fusion 360 getting the body design has been a stumbling block, On Facebook, there is a k-9 builders community and a link to a OneDrive account with 200 x 200 sliced STLs. I have started with the front left corner, the corners are about 300 g of filament, according to the readme it has a requirement for about 7 rolls of natural PLA.
- My dog’s got no noseTo avoid this joke in future, I have started printing my K9’s head by printing the two parts of the nose first:
- Drill motors for our PiWars RobotNathaniel Poate of Team Shortcircuit Robot Bits supplied me with five drill motors, these are drill motors from cordless battery-powered drills. Three of them are 12 V, and the remaining two are 18 V motor and gearbox sets, these were given to me for use with robotics projects. I received an email back about our team entry for PiWars: Your team, McGaw’s, has been selected as a Reserve in the Beginner category. Here are some things to know about being a Reserve in Pi Wars. Mike Horne, Tim Richardson & David Booth of PiWars My 8-year-old son, as the chief designer has decided that… Read more: Drill motors for our PiWars Robot
