Companion robots Nadine and Scarlett Johansson impress

“I think robotics is a new manufacturing and it can help people to do some high-risk work and go to top of the mountain and deep ocean to realize our world adventure,” said Scarlett Johansson. 

Okay…maybe she didn’t say it. However, an artificial intelligence replying to the question of what she thinks about the future did. An engineering student by the name of Ricky Ma decided to build his own humanoid from scratch and modeled it after Scarlett Johansson. According to Engineering.com, the robot cost $50,000 (USD) to build. 

Using CAD, CAE and a 3D printer he built his robot, even printing out a torso and pelvic bones so the robot could stand upright and move its limbs. He is calling it ‘Mark 1’ and more than half of her is 3D printed. 

The Nanyang Technological University in Singapore has a similar robot called ‘Nadine’. The robot can have a conversation with you, change her facial expression and greets someone by name based on the last time they met. The woman behind the robot is the director of NTU’s Insitute for Media Innovation, Nadia Thalmann, in an interview with Vice’s Motherboard, said, “Nadine is using a 3D camera and can detect and recognize people due to a binary pattern algorithm. Then she has a short time memory linked to her language database. When we tell her something, she will analyse what is being said and link to the database, itself linked to the memory.” 

Check it out and then prepare for the robopocalypse: