The Art of Robot Building: A Journey from Prototypes to Show-Stoppers

I remember when I showed up at Disney Imagineering, Tony was already working on these two little automatons. They were no electronics, no motors, no computer, and no sensors - just a proof of concept for whether or not it was possible to create a robot that could do stunts. These early prototypes were the first step in understanding how robots could be designed to perform complex movements.

The design philosophy behind these early robots was simple: let's build something that we can easily repair in a matter of minutes, not hours or days. We wanted our robots to be adaptable and responsive, able to make significant changes in their inertia with just a few adjustments. Our first prototype was a four-by-four sawed-in-half piece of wood with a door hinge in the middle - it may seem simple, but it marked an important turning point in our research.

As we continued to work on our robots, we began to experiment with different joint geometries and configurations. One robot featured breakaway linkages that allowed us to reconfigure its structure mid-air, while another was designed for robustness and ease of repair. Each iteration brought us closer to creating a truly functional stunt robot.

But it wasn't all smooth sailing. There were many setbacks and failures along the way - robots that crashed, broke down, or simply refused to work as expected. However, we learned from each failure, and our design philosophy remained the same: build something that can be easily fixed and improved upon.

One of our most significant breakthroughs came when we began working on a human-shaped robot, roughly 150 pounds in size. This was our first attempt at creating a more substantial piece of machinery, one that could move with some degree of fluidity and naturalism. We named this robot "Stuntronics," and it marked a major turning point in our research.

Our Stuntronics robots were designed to be easy to assemble and disassemble, with modular components that allowed us to reconfigure their structure at will. They were also incredibly durable, able to withstand the rigors of repeated use and abuse. But perhaps most importantly, they looked good - sleek, streamlined, and almost indistinguishable from a living being.

The transition from prototype to production was a gradual one. We continued to refine our designs, fine-tuning every detail until we had created robots that were not only functional but also visually stunning. And when it came time to introduce our Stuntronics robots to the public, they exceeded even our own expectations.

I grew up in a small town in rural Utah, where I was always fascinated by science fiction and fantasy. As I delved deeper into robotics, I realized that this was exactly what I had been meant to do - create machines that could transport us to new worlds, inspire us with their beauty, and make us feel like we were capable of anything.

My journey began at Harvard, where I studied mechanical engineering and became increasingly fascinated by robotics. It was there that I met a graduate student working on robotic systems, and suddenly the world opened up in ways I never thought possible. A few months later, I realized that my life was still being written - and I had a choice to make.

That's when I decided to pursue a career in robotics, driven by a passion for creating something entirely new and original. My PhD research focused on biomimetics and robotics, with the goal of replicating the incredible abilities of animals like squirrels. We were far from there yet, but we were on the right track.

A few years later, I found myself at Walt Disney Imagineering, where my skills as a robotics engineer would be put to the ultimate test. It was a dream come true - to work alongside talented designers and engineers who shared my passion for innovation and creativity. And it was there that our Stuntronics robots took center stage, thrilling audiences with their beauty, agility, and sheer showmanship.

My time at Disney Imagineering has been an incredible journey, filled with challenges, triumphs, and a healthy dose of excitement. From humble beginnings as a small-town nerd to becoming a leading robotics engineer, I've seen firsthand the power of imagination and innovation. And I know that there's still so much more to come - the future is bright, and the possibilities are endless.

"WEBVTTKind: captionsLanguage: enmy job here is to look at are there new technologies that are emerging that could have an impact on the experience that guests have in our parks is there something that we've always wanted to or some kind of a dramatic experience that we wanted to deliver that we haven't previously been able to do because the technology wasn't there my name is morgan pope and i'm a research scientist at walt disney imagineering what i'm trying to do is deliver something new and exciting and that means that in the early phases i might be physically making something mocking something up you know maybe maybe writing a little bit of firmware maybe putting together a very basic circuit maybe building a small mechanical thing to just kind of test out and see if there's any something there if there's anything at all and then as an idea maybe takes form and bad ideas fall away then it shifts into working with a slightly larger team to build something with a little more resolution sometimes it shifts into managing a bunch of really smart people as they do a deep dive into creating something and then as we move as the project moves towards actually delivering something i get to be in that role of making sure the system is coming together making sure that we understand how we can do this reliably and safely the projects at disney usually take years we're starting with something that's new and undeveloped and it takes a while to figure out what it even is and then actually delivering something to the level of quality that is expected is something that takes a long time so the amazing spider-man show it's been almost a full five years to really bring that into reality one of my absolute favorite things about working at disney is that i get to work with a really amazing team i have a technical background but we're producing creative dramatic products so my creative partner has been tony dohey he has such a good grasp of how to take a technical innovation and how to push it into something that will make an emotional experience we were able to work with special effects specialists be able to work with programmers and with mechanical engineers with other roboticists and with people who specialize in putting on shows these are our prototypes going back when i showed up tony was already working on these two little automatons uh there's actually no electronics in them there's no motors there's no computer uh there's no sensors there's a proof of concept for whether or not it was possible to create a robot that can do stunts at the same time i was working on this which is not as visually interesting as these guys but it had some weights inside that could move around and those would let it change how fast it was spinning so we went from the brick to this very very early very crude prototype it's just a four by four sawed in half with a door hinge in the middle of it and basically gave it the kind of the control ideas that we had developed for here except now we're shifting inertia via a bend which is how a human would do it the design philosophy for this was let's build something that uh we can easily repair in a matter of minutes not hours or days it was able to do pretty significant changes in its inertia you know going from this extended pose to this fully compressed pose it's a big change definitely when this thing landed you're kind of like oh i hope it's okay this is our first kind of human shaped prototype at 150 pounds this is a pretty substantial piece of machinery it's got a lot of energy coming down he's a fairly clunky robot and it's not it's not particularly graceful or elegant when it's on the ground but as soon as you throw it into the air suddenly there's no liveness to it these were easy half scale was super easy to put together they were cheap to make and and so we're able to play with different hip configurations pick out what motions ended up being important and starting to think you know is this giving us the show we want this one was an exploration of the different joint geometries and this one was also a super robust robot that was easy to fix so we were able to confidently throw him on a very new system throw him very high that gave us confidence to go ahead and start with this electric figure so this is our second to last robot that we built the the last prototype robot similar design ideas of having breakaway linkages where we need them a lot cleaner a lot tighter everything fits inside the human shell it's got to look good in the spandex right this is the one where we felt like yes this is actually our first truly functional stuntronics robot this is the one that looks good enough that you can believe it's a it's your hero actually flying through the air it was never a linear path to this job i grew up in a small town in rural utah and i was a huge nerd i loved reading and books basically just took the lid off of my imagination and and let me experience and dream it was at harvard that i sort of realized that i could participate in making stuff that was new and then i remember meeting a grad student who was working on robotics and i was like oh my gosh that's the coolest thing ever and i mean wouldn't it be awesome if i could if i could do that at the time i was like yeah that's it just felt like a completely different life and then you know a few months later i was thinking i was like wait a second you know my life is yet to be written i could totally do that like there's no there's no laws against it and so i ended up getting my phd in mechanical engineering um and i worked in a lab called the biomimetics and dexter's robotics lab the bdml at stanford that lab focuses on taking inspiration from the natural world a robot capable of flying perching recovering from failure and taking off because the natural world is amazing and we are so far behind in robotics compared to what you know even a squirrel can do but there's so much there to learn and so that was kind of the focus of that lab is kind of is there anything that we can get close to achieving working at walt disney imagineering is something that a lot of people dream about and i feel very lucky to have been able to work here obviously i worked hard in my phd but it really was a great coincidence that i had worked with a professor who knew one of the research scientists at disney and so he was able to give me a strong recommendation and that kind of opened the door to allow me to come in once i was able to come in to interview it was pretty clear it was a good fit on both sides this is a place where i could do that kind of engineering work that i loved but it also spoke to that kid in rural utah who loved sci-fi and fantasymy job here is to look at are there new technologies that are emerging that could have an impact on the experience that guests have in our parks is there something that we've always wanted to or some kind of a dramatic experience that we wanted to deliver that we haven't previously been able to do because the technology wasn't there my name is morgan pope and i'm a research scientist at walt disney imagineering what i'm trying to do is deliver something new and exciting and that means that in the early phases i might be physically making something mocking something up you know maybe maybe writing a little bit of firmware maybe putting together a very basic circuit maybe building a small mechanical thing to just kind of test out and see if there's any something there if there's anything at all and then as an idea maybe takes form and bad ideas fall away then it shifts into working with a slightly larger team to build something with a little more resolution sometimes it shifts into managing a bunch of really smart people as they do a deep dive into creating something and then as we move as the project moves towards actually delivering something i get to be in that role of making sure the system is coming together making sure that we understand how we can do this reliably and safely the projects at disney usually take years we're starting with something that's new and undeveloped and it takes a while to figure out what it even is and then actually delivering something to the level of quality that is expected is something that takes a long time so the amazing spider-man show it's been almost a full five years to really bring that into reality one of my absolute favorite things about working at disney is that i get to work with a really amazing team i have a technical background but we're producing creative dramatic products so my creative partner has been tony dohey he has such a good grasp of how to take a technical innovation and how to push it into something that will make an emotional experience we were able to work with special effects specialists be able to work with programmers and with mechanical engineers with other roboticists and with people who specialize in putting on shows these are our prototypes going back when i showed up tony was already working on these two little automatons uh there's actually no electronics in them there's no motors there's no computer uh there's no sensors there's a proof of concept for whether or not it was possible to create a robot that can do stunts at the same time i was working on this which is not as visually interesting as these guys but it had some weights inside that could move around and those would let it change how fast it was spinning so we went from the brick to this very very early very crude prototype it's just a four by four sawed in half with a door hinge in the middle of it and basically gave it the kind of the control ideas that we had developed for here except now we're shifting inertia via a bend which is how a human would do it the design philosophy for this was let's build something that uh we can easily repair in a matter of minutes not hours or days it was able to do pretty significant changes in its inertia you know going from this extended pose to this fully compressed pose it's a big change definitely when this thing landed you're kind of like oh i hope it's okay this is our first kind of human shaped prototype at 150 pounds this is a pretty substantial piece of machinery it's got a lot of energy coming down he's a fairly clunky robot and it's not it's not particularly graceful or elegant when it's on the ground but as soon as you throw it into the air suddenly there's no liveness to it these were easy half scale was super easy to put together they were cheap to make and and so we're able to play with different hip configurations pick out what motions ended up being important and starting to think you know is this giving us the show we want this one was an exploration of the different joint geometries and this one was also a super robust robot that was easy to fix so we were able to confidently throw him on a very new system throw him very high that gave us confidence to go ahead and start with this electric figure so this is our second to last robot that we built the the last prototype robot similar design ideas of having breakaway linkages where we need them a lot cleaner a lot tighter everything fits inside the human shell it's got to look good in the spandex right this is the one where we felt like yes this is actually our first truly functional stuntronics robot this is the one that looks good enough that you can believe it's a it's your hero actually flying through the air it was never a linear path to this job i grew up in a small town in rural utah and i was a huge nerd i loved reading and books basically just took the lid off of my imagination and and let me experience and dream it was at harvard that i sort of realized that i could participate in making stuff that was new and then i remember meeting a grad student who was working on robotics and i was like oh my gosh that's the coolest thing ever and i mean wouldn't it be awesome if i could if i could do that at the time i was like yeah that's it just felt like a completely different life and then you know a few months later i was thinking i was like wait a second you know my life is yet to be written i could totally do that like there's no there's no laws against it and so i ended up getting my phd in mechanical engineering um and i worked in a lab called the biomimetics and dexter's robotics lab the bdml at stanford that lab focuses on taking inspiration from the natural world a robot capable of flying perching recovering from failure and taking off because the natural world is amazing and we are so far behind in robotics compared to what you know even a squirrel can do but there's so much there to learn and so that was kind of the focus of that lab is kind of is there anything that we can get close to achieving working at walt disney imagineering is something that a lot of people dream about and i feel very lucky to have been able to work here obviously i worked hard in my phd but it really was a great coincidence that i had worked with a professor who knew one of the research scientists at disney and so he was able to give me a strong recommendation and that kind of opened the door to allow me to come in once i was able to come in to interview it was pretty clear it was a good fit on both sides this is a place where i could do that kind of engineering work that i loved but it also spoke to that kid in rural utah who loved sci-fi and fantasy\n"