Hey guys,
Sometime last week I quickly talked a little about a project I as working on with a great friend of mine : a life-sized (1.5m high, more than 2m long) stylized saber tooth tiger with a slightly animated head.
The sculpture is made out of a steel frame and scooter/motorcycle parts. It is strong enough to be ridden by multiple people - it makes for great photos![]()
The body is all Romain's work, and even for the head, that we did completely together, we followed mostly his artistic vibes ^^.
The head can move left/right, the lips can retract to show the teeth, and it has two pairs of ears (more like the cats in Avatar than anything real). The eyes glow red and there are reasonably-sized speakers in the head, with a big subwoofer in the body. The sound has been made by another friend of ours, and is mostly inspired by sounds of motorbikes and cats, lions and tigers.
There are two US distance sensors in the legs so that Aringer can (roughly) track people in front of him and turn his head to face them. Sounds are coordinated with the distance at wich people are standing: a peaceful breathing/purr when people are far away, a threatening growl when they come closer and roaring when they come too close.
The lips, ears and eyes are synchronized with the sound to make the reaction more impressive ^^
Unfortunately I don't have any great video, I'll try to get some ASAP.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7gVX2As7ik
Finally, there are patterns that only reveal themselves when you take a picture with the flash:
Some fun with humanoid robots... Poppy and Nao are maybe a little small, but I could not convince Reem-C, Aria, iCub nor Roemo to ride :/
I guess tiger-riding is not the most useful skill when developing elderly-care robots
It's the first time we work together on a project, and we had to find our pace, to understand the differences in each other's approach, the different tools and skills, etc. An awesome experienceNext time we'll make something with even cooler mechanics, much better control.
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