Disney Imagineers Unveil Stuntronics: the Acrobat Robot

David Alayón
Sep 6, 2018 · 2 min read

In this series of articles we’ve mentioned Disney’s innovation laboratory, the Disney Research Hub, and Walt Disney’s vision of EPCOT, and we’ve talked a lot about robots (Row-Bot, Nanobots, FoodBots…) but we haven’t said anything about Disney Imagineers and animatronics yet. Walt Disney Imagineering is the research and development arm of The Walt Disney Company, responsible for the creation, design and construction of Disney theme parks and attractions around the world. This group was a pioneer in animatronics, a technique in which, through the use of robotic or electronic mechanisms, it simulates the appearance and behavior of living beings using puppets or other mechanical dolls.

In fact, it was Walt Disney in 1961 who coined the term audio-animatronic and began to develop the modern animatronic technology. Two years later he already had his first creations: Disneyland’s Enchanted Tiki Birds. Over time, Disney has evolved this concept and populated its parks with small autonomous robots. For the more curious, here is a video that shows the best 10 Disney’s animatronics.

The fact is that they’ve recently published some videos of their latest creation, the acrobatic robots under the name of Stuntronics. It’s amazing! We admire very much the work of Boston Dynamics, Asimo, Da Vinci or Sofi (no doubt!) but the WOW effect generated by the Disney robot is enviable. Obviously it’s not a robot with as much autonomy as the others but accomplish its mission very well: it can perform complex acrobatics, making its own decisions in real time using sophisticated sensors, and flying 18 meters from the ground, with a weight of 40 kilos. He knows when to bend his knees to perform a cartwheel, when to stretch his arms to turn, and even when to slow down his turn to make sure he lands perfectly.

The heart of these robots is called BRICK (Binary Robotic Inertially Controlled bricK) and is responsible for stabilizing and orienting the robots. Freeing animatronics from an anchorage point has opened many doors to Disney whose goal is to have autonomous robots walking alongside park visitors. Have you seen Westworld? 🙂

#365daysof #futurism #technology #robots #innovation #day192

Future Today

High quality curated content and topics related to innovation and futurism along with a little reflection

David Alayón

Written by

Creative Technology Officer & Co-founder @Innuba_es @Mindset_tech · Partner @GuudTV @darwinsnoise · Professor @IEBSchool @DICeducacion · Mentor @ConectorSpain

Future Today

High quality curated content and topics related to innovation and futurism along with a little reflection

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