Animatronic costume aims to create a costume that is healthy to wear, allowing for safer, longer and more lively interactions between the guests and the performers. Unlike traditional costume which has only static facial expression, animatronic costume features different facial expression including angry, happy and surprise by controlling eyebrows, eyeballs, and jaw.
Based on customer interviews, we developed several personal as our key stakeholder, including performers, manufacturers, and kids. Based on customers' interviews, we generated over 100 design ideas and selected the following as main project deliverables:
➔Flexible Eyebrow Mechanism
➔Lifted eyebrows
➔Natural Jaw Mover
➔Hat Fan
➔Pupil Reducing Mechanism
➔Cool Tech
➔Screen Eyes
Several prototypes are developed and tested, including movable jaws, eyebrows, eyeballs that are made of LCD screens, cooling vest, cooling fan, helmet, and vision system.
Brow movement can greatly affect the characters. When the brow goes up, it shows angry. When it goes down, it is a sign of sadness.
We also utilized LCD screen to show eye ball movement. Utilizing LCD screen instead of traditional mechanical eye balls allows more free space inside the costume, and is easier to install and manipulate.
Jaw is made by 3D printing and controlled by Arduino.
Most of the heat generated by human body are from the chest and head. Therefore, we will have our users to wear cooling vest inside the costume. And also a helmet with a cooling fan. The fan is connected with a temperature sensors to detect the temperature and adjust the temperature inside costume accordingly.
We also developed a vision system that can help our users to gain a better vision inside the costume. Current design is to have users see through the mouth of the costume, but now we are making it in a way that's more comfortable and easy to manipulate.
