Emma Woods
This project aimed to create a wooden mechanical head that would emote through facial expressions. In order to simulate human emotions, my teammates and I used arduino to animate the eyes, eyelids, eyebrows, and mouth of the 1.5 foot head. The pieces of this head were designed on Fusion 360 and laser cut using plywood.
PROJECT FOCUS
This project aimed to use rapid prototyping methods to build an aesthetically pleasing wooden head that can emote.
RESEARCH & INSPIRATION
Other robotic heads inspired our design, although we focused on using sustainable materials.
Face Forward
Kismet
Makoi
PROTOTYPING PROCESS
The prototype progressed through several iterations before the final laser-cut plywood version with moving eyes, eyebrows, and mouth.
CONCLUSION
Our final prototype unfortunately fell into the uncanny valley, likely due to the design of the mouth.
In the future, we would like to improve the appearance and functionality of the core facial features. We also discussed the possibility of implementing software that can detect and mimic the facial features of a person standing in front of the face in order to enhance the interactivity of the project.