To start, I hand-sculpted the head, beak, and tongue from oil-based clay, then created silicone jacket molds and cast the parts in a durable, paint-friendly polyurethane resin. The 2-DOF motion base, along with the neck and beak actuator assemblies, were modeled in Fusion 360 and 3D printed. One of the biggest challenges was designing the internal beak mechanism to fit within the existing sculpt while maintaining an accurate jaw pivot point, since the sculpt was completed before the internal mechanics were developed.

For programming, my goal was to achieve fluid, natural motion and a way to visualize the figure while creating shows. The solution was inverse kinematics. By linking Blender to the control board via serial communication, I could live-program the figure and stream actuator positions directly from the 3D environment. Once satisfied with an animation, I built a pipeline to export both motion data and audio to an SD card, allowing the controller to play back the show untethered from the computer.