Customized computer code and electronic circuits gives a lamp uncanny lifelike behaviors

Here's a charming little film featuring an animated lamp that is part of a project titled Pinokio. Despite how it may appear, this NOT done with stop motion animation.

From the Pinokio project video description:

Pinokio is an exploration into the expressive and behavioural potentials of robotic computing. Customized computer code and electronic circuit design imbues Lamp with the ability to be aware of its environment, especially people, and to expresses a dynamic range of behaviour. As it negotiates its world, we the human audience can see that Lamp shares many traits possessed by animals, generating a range of emotional sympathies.

Pinokio was a collaborative project created by Shanshan Zhou, Adam Ben-Dror, and Joss Doggett using Processing, Arduino, and OpenCV. The creators admit that Pinokio may not be the most intelligent robot ever produced, but that doesn't mean it isn't special.

Says Shanshan Zhou

Just like Pinocchio the puppet who comes to life and confidently proclaims "I'm a real boy" – it is the irrepressible and seemingly instinctive impulse of living for its own sake in Pinokio that shines forth in poetry and magic.

Indeed, the expressive and behavioral qualities make Pinokio come alive in a visceral way. Any time that a machine can do that, something remarkable has happened. Here is a fascinating video of the project in progress, complete with a Lamp-point-of-view monitor:

The project was created as for the course MDDN 251: Physical computing at Victoria University of Wellington, as part of their module on animatronics. Well done. Well done.

[ Thanks Christoph! ]

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Which Card Says 'I Love You' as Much as I Really Do? - Video of Valentine Automaton

As you may have heard by now, I will be exhibiting at the World Maker Faire in New York City this weekend, September 29 and 30, 2012. I know not all of you can make it, but that doesn't mean you can't see some of my pieces in action! I am pleased to announce that I'll be posting videos of some of my own automata over the next several days while I am getting ready for and participating in Maker Faire.

Presenting for the first time online, video of my piece titled Which Card Says 'I Love You' as Much as I Really Do?

I made this one quickly compared to most of my others. I like the general idea because I've been the poor fellow depicted in the scene. No commercial greeting card product seems to hit the nail on the head. Maybe this automaton does? The hundreds of miniature greeting cards took me nearly as long to make as the automaton itself. Here's a close-up shot of the cards in the display shelf:

The mechanism for the automaton is straightforward. The bouncing heart advertising display is driven by a two-lobed cam. The figure's head is turned from side-to-side by two offset cams hitting opposite edges of a circular driving plate. The rotating card carousel is driven by a small belt twisted 90 degrees from the rotation of the main axle.

The figure and the method of constructing it inspired my Tips, Techniques, and Tricks article #5 about a how to make a basic wooden head from simple shapes.

There appears to be a tradition among automaton-makers to make a piece related to Valentine's Day. This would be my contribution to the genre. Here's a round up of Valentine's Day pieces by other artists including Keith Newstead, Per Helldorff, Marc Horovitz, Rob Ives, Haruki Nakamura, and Paul Spooner. This list is by no means exhaustive; I know I've neglected many fine artists and examples.

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