It took Ricky Ma, 42, R750 000 and a year and a half to fulfill a childhood dream of building a realistic humanoid robot. His choice of model? Miss Scarlett Johansson.

Using a 3D printer, the product and graphic designer from Hong Kong has been obsessed with androids all his life and is now looking for investors who want to buy her.

Here’s how he did it:

Mark 1 features a 3D printed skeleton, and 70% of the body was made using 3D printing. Her skin is made from silicone, which wraps around and hides the mechanical and electronic interior of the robot to give her a human-like appearance.

The robot also features facial motors that enable her eyebrows and the “muscles” around her eyes to move, relax and tense. When spoken to, Mark 1 can react by moving motors to produce a convincing facial expression, such as raising her eyebrows in surprise and even winking.

Without any formal training in robotics or electrical engineering, the feat is quite impressive. He had to master complex skills like computer programming and electromagnetics, build accurate 3D models of all the parts that needed to be printed and figure out how to successfully fit the robot’s skin over the components, with a time consuming trial-and-error method.

I figured I should just do it when the timing is right and realise my dream. If I realise my dream, I will have no regrets in life. During this process, a lot of people would say things like, ‘Are you stupid? This takes a lot of money. Do you even know how to do it? It’s really hard.

When you look at everything together, it was really difficult.

[source: ibtimes]