Building a Humanoid Hollywood star

2016-04-06 | By Maker.io Staff

Ever thought of building your own robot? Well product and graphic designer Ricky Ma from Hong Kong did just that. Ricky grew up in Hong Kong watching cartoons and adventure robots and dreamt from an early age of building his own one day. At 42 years of age the realization of his childhood dreams started to become a reality. Ricky Ma started constructing a life-size robot from scratch on the balcony of his home in Hong Kong.

After a year-and-a-half of research and development and a whopping budget of $50,000, Ricky produced a female robot prototype, which he calls Mark 1. Mark 1 is modeled after a famous Hollywood star whose name he wants to keep quiet but the public have likened the robot to none other than Scarlett Johansson. Mark 1 is programmed to reason to a number of verbal spoken commands into a microphone.

Verbal Voice Commands

“I figured I should just do it when the timing is right and realise my dream.  If I realise my dream, I will have no regrets in life” said Ricky Ma, who had to learn about fields which were completely new to him so he could start building Mark 1.

Mark 1 Facial Expressions

Besides some of the simple movements Mark 1 can do such as moving its arms and legs, turning its head and bowing, with its dark blond hair and liquid blue eyes it can create a number of facial expressions in response to the verbal voice commands. “Mark 1, you are so beautiful”, it’s eye brows and the muscles around its eyes start to relax and the corners of the lips start to lift, creating a natural smile and it responds with “hehe, thank you.”

Underneath a 3D-printed skeleton lies beneath the silicone skin, wrapping it’s mechanical and electronic components. Roughly about 70% of Mark 1’s body was created using 3D printed technology.

Mark 1’s 3D Printed Parts

Ricky Ma’s journey of creating his childhood dream was accomplished solely by himself, he did not know of anyone else who develops robotics as a hobby and only a few people in the city really understand his dream. Like most other hobbyists he adopted the trial-and-error method of development which incurred a range of challenge such as frequent burn-out of electric motors to toppling over due to balancing.

Mark 1 Lifelike Features

Ma believes that the importance of robotics will only grow and hopes that investors will buy into his prototype, giving him the capitol to develop Mark 1 further.

The rise in research and development into robotics and artificial intelligence are among labour market changes that the World Economic Forum projects will lead to a net loss of approximately 5 million jobs over the next 5 years or so.

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