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Pinokio, The Animatronic Lamp That Is Aware of Its Environment

Created by Shanshan Zhou, Adam Ben-Dror and Joss Doggett, Animatronic Lamp is an exploration into the expressive and behavioural potentials of robotic computing. Using Processing, Arduino, and OpenCV, the Lamp is given an ability to be aware of its environment, and to expresses a dynamic range of behaviour.

As it negotiates it’s world, we the human audience can see that Lamp shares many traits possessed by animals, generating a range of emotional sympathies. In the end we may ask: Is Lamp only a lamp? – a useful machine? Perhaps we should put the book aside and meet a new friend.

The components include a hacked webcam, microphone, mechanical iris, 2 servos and halogen globe embedded into a tiny cavity at the back of the lamp shade. Most of the components were lasercut and the design of course inspired by the famous Anglepoise lamp by George Carwardin and the Pixar lamp. We especially love the reference to “The Most Useless Machine EVER” which gives the lamp that extra bit of personality.

Project Page

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  • scepticist

    well, it doesn’t light anything. so is still a lamp?

  • 5tm

    Really nice, maybe Pixar would be interested.

  • http://twitter.com/TadashiHikari Hikari Tadashi

    Haha, this is so cool!

  • Dissapointed

    Nice stop motion work – a little glitchy in parts – too bad it’s not real.

  • http://www.facebook.com/Jasonkenny666 Jason Kenny

    Love stop motion, it’s like listening to vinyl over cd, something warmer about it than cgi.

  • ampexian

    Another example of ingenuity without purpose. Wish they would adapt this idea to be a critique of what a lamp actually does…

  • Shanshan

    Hi Jason

    This is not a stop motion. Its behavior is driven by processing :)

    Glad you enjoyed it!

  • Shanshan

    Hi my friend, this is recorded real time, not stop motion. You are more than welcome to have a look at our work in progress video https://vimeo.com/52280397

  • I N

    “he`s always watching” – loh, try to fcuk her

  • Oliver Prucha

    A couple of these comments illustrates how people neglect to read. How can you honestly think this is a stop motion animation when the article itself tells you about the lamp animatronics. Boggles my mind.

  • yonah märz

    quite a similar work i’ve seen in Germay two years ago
    http://vimeo.com/14478256

  • D

    The idea is not original. Basically implementing Pixar’s idea into reality. That’s all.