Do you like robots? Come let’s meet a new robot by Disney’s Project Kiwi

Disney’s R&D lab, known as its Imagineering team, has revealed its new robot — an engineering marvel that is straight out of the movies. It can walk freely, swings its arms at a comfortable pace, and looks just like ‘Baby Groot’. Having spent more than three years the Disney engineers have made a fully functional robot that can even make eye contact with guests. A new report features Disney’s ‘Project Kiwi’ that intends to soon make its robots interact face-to-face with guests visiting Disney theme parks.

To become successful in this effort the Disney engineers worked tirelessly, using clever design to fit everything in a tiny space and given the robot a realistic texture, explains a report by TechCrunch. However, its skeleton is hollow to let air circulate and cool its motors. It is said that it can go for about 45 minutes on a single charge, but engineers are working to improve the backup.

When the video starts Disney engineers are testing and making amends with an in-development robotic platform. Lastly, Baby Groot walks out, waves, and begins dancing. It has a perfectly textured face, hands, and feet. The legs use a system that makes motions more power-efficient and quicker, but the landing is gentle to allow shock absorption and add believability and self-balancing. So as to minimise the amount of wiring throughout Kiwi, the team is said to have created a set of origami-like circuit boards joined by integrated flex cabling.

Making the baby Groot must not have been an easy process. The TechCrunch report says that the integrated structure of Disney’s Imagineering departments meant that the engineers could collaborate and share solutions. The robot, though breath-taking, is unlikely to be seen at Disney parks anytime soon.

According to the report, the engineers are now working on a new set of actuators that will assure the robot is able to handle sudden human interactions. A new sensor suite is also in the developing stage, that will allow the robot to identify human faces and help Kiwi take the shape of any child-size character from movies and cartoons.

More than 100 million people visit Disney’s parks annually. And with Baby Groots easily roaming about in the parks, this figure is surely going to explode.