As a small kick-off for my master’s thesis I used a previously mentioned 3D scan of my head to create a robotic face with a movable jaw. The face is currently anything but jovial, but could be made to say anything, not just the zombie on screensaver mode as visible in the video below.

Concept

DETAILS

Looking at the intersection between man and machine, what is human and what is machine, I aimed to move towards mimicking the movements of the human face, starting with the jaw. Starting with a cleaned up 3D scan of my head I was able to manipulate it into a format which could be cut out on a laser cutter and glued together into a simile of myself.

The software Autodesk 123D Make was used to convert the 3D model into an array of slices, each the thickness of MDF which was available.

After getting the slices cut out, they were reassembled into a face once again. The jaw was cut out separately to ensure it could be mounted and actuated once the model was put together.

The ridges between each level of the face create an interesting, and somewhat confusing, resolution to what is usually smooth and ordered.

The face was animated rather simply using an Arduino Uno and a servo motor, hence the squeaky whirring sound which can be heard in the above video.