Animatronic Head

Animatronic Head V3

The goal of Animatronic Head V3 was to create a fully open source, expressive robotic face designed to make animatronics more accessible to makers, students, and educators. To accomplish this goal, I designed the entire system to be easily 3D printable, while using off the shelf components totaling in cost around $50.

Making the project low cost, open source, and 3D printable matters because it lowers the barriers of who can actually use it. A lot of animatronics work is hidden behind expensive parts, proprietary designs, or a steep learning curve, which makes it hard for students, hobbyists, and smaller makers to get started. By keeping the build affordable, the project becomes more realistic for people to replicate. By making it open source, others can inspect the design, improve it, adapt it, and learn from it instead of starting from scratch. And by designing it to be easy to build and learn with, it becomes a teaching platform rather than just a finished object, which helps more people understand robotics, fabrication, and expressive mechanical design.

The free downloadable model along with a BOM is available on Printables at this link.

The head features independently actuated eyebrows, eyelids, eyes, smile, and jaw, enabling a wide range of facial expressions while remaining inexpensive and easy to build. Developed in collaboration with Prusa and printed on the Core One L, the project serves as a platform for learning robotics, mechanical design, embedded systems, and digital fabrication.

Watch Animatronic Head V3 on YouTube

Stay tuned for a silicon skin update coming soon!