April 23, 2013

Fritz, the Arduino-controlled animated robotic head

by Gavril Mankoo

Looking for a robotic head with which you can play God and literally control the emotions and speech of? Well, look no further! Behold! A brilliant innovation by XYZbot called Fritz, an animatronic robot head that portrays a bunch of human emotions. Complete with moving eyes, a moving jaw, eyelids, eyebrows, lips and a moving neck, Fritz works as a great companion and a fun way to learn a little more about the world of robotics. The robot head can be hooked up to a computer via a USB cable and then controlled with an application that allows you to “animate” its movable parts!


Also, one can save expressions created on the software and have Fritz do these whenever required. The development is currently crowd-funding on Kickstarter and was funded $25,000 and more in the first two weeks itself! One can fund the project and have a Fritz kit delivered home. The robotic head comes in a kit that requires simple assembly and uses the good old Arduino to its advantage. Available in two versions, the Fritz basic edition comes for just $140 and includes a movable jaw and movable eyeballs. The more advanced version is priced at $215 and offers more expressions.