As one of the many über-talented 3D artists at Pixar, Alonso Martinez knows a thing or two about bringing adorable-looking characters to life on screen. However, his work left him wondering:
“In movies you see really amazing things happening but you actually can’t interact with them – what would it be like if you could interact with characters?”
So with the help of his friends Aaron Nathan and Vijay Sundaram, Alonso set out to bring the concept of animation to the physical world by building a “character” that reacts to her environment. His experiments with robotics started with Gertie, a ball-like robot reminiscent of his time spent animating bouncing balls when he was learning his trade. From there, he moved on to Mira.
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This is amazing and Alonso has such a smile!
Now, I need to understand how this 3 axis thing works, I can’t sleep 🙂