French computer scientist Paul-Louis Ageneau has created a dancing teapot to celebrate the launch of the new Beauty and the Beast film.
The 3D printed teapot has been programmed with an Arduino Pro Mini micro controller board to make it dance, just like Mrs Pots the teapot from the film.
“The Bob robot, itself remixed from the Arduped robot, inspired an impressive number of clones with its really good design,” Ageneau wrote in a blog post.
“The most famous ones might be Zowi, and more recently Otto. They are both simple, cheap, open-source and 3D-printed little robots which have refined Bob two-legged design. Yet, I am not a fan of their strange square heads. What I would like is a teapot. A dancing teapot.”
The teapot is made out of polylactide and was designed using CAD modeling software OpenSCAD, because the designer said he isn’t a fan of the other robots’ square heads. It features two legs, but no arms, a spout and handle, with four servos on its legs and ankles to make it crack out the signature moves.
Although the robot Ageneau created isn’t painted in fancy colours like Mrs Potts, it’s pretty funny to watch all the same and with a 9-volt alkaline battery, it will carry on dancing for quite some time.
He’s also made the sketches, SCAD files and STL files available for everyone to download on GitHub so although you can’t buy the dancing robot, which doesn’t really do anything except dance around a tabletop, you can make it yourself if you have a 3D printer and a spare Arduino Pro Mini microcontroller board.
Next up, Ageneau wants to add music playing support to the robot, making it an all-singing, all-dancing robot.
