Ideas on a simple project please - rotating small dalek!

I suggest a servo unit intended to control the flight surfaces of model airplanes. They are made in many sizes, have smooth, proportional response, include the reduction gears to provide relatively high torque, have the right voltage requirements and move fast enough for this.

Model servos work over a range of about 270 degrees and are reasonably priced compared to DIY. Tower Hobbies will probably have the best prices. They are on the 'net.

You need a circuit to actuate it. They take pulse position modulation to set the position. For that a "servo tester" would work for you.

Simple servo tester schematic

You may also want to consider a "thrust bearing" to bear the load of the table and contents - the servo isn't optimized for a load directly on it's shaft - for that you need something like a lazy susan bearing to support the weight of the table.

The RC servo will work like an Owl's head if the guy walks around it in a circle. Better to have a little micromo gearhead motor with an encoder on the back of it... run a couple of wires from the 5v dc motor and the encoder to a little microcontroller. (I'm a programmer. All the problems I solve have a microcontroller in the solution). Add Passive Infrared Sensors in the eyeballs and the darn thing will track anything hot autonomously.

Good idea.

He expressed the idea that he's not too into electronics and wanted it simple. Learning a pic may be outside the scope of the project.

I made a remote positioner from a pair of stepper motors. One stepper generates the signal and the other follows the first. An quad op amp takes the signal one motor generates, and turns it into a square wave drives for a few Darlington power transistors. Turn the knob on the generator and the slave follows it. I used a pair of cheap surplus bipolar steppers of the same type, but could have also used ones with different step angles for more or less fine control of the driven motor. Really worked well for a remote antenna tuner.