You Can Use These Incredibly Realistic Animatronic Eyeballs in Your Projects
Will Cogley just launched an online shop, NM Robotics, along with his new EyeMech ε3.1 system.
Animatronics have always been very cool, but building them in the past was not an undertaking for the faint of heart. The modern maker and hobbyist engineering scene, however, is much more accessible, so you can design and construct your own animatronic characters. But even today, eyes are still pretty difficult to get right. Eye movement is very complex and there isn’t a lot of room for the associated mechanisms, while eyeballs are beyond the artistic skill of most of us. Thankfully, Will Cogley solved both of those problems with the complete EyeMech ε3.1 system.
We’ve covered Cogley’s robotics and animatronics projects over the years and have been particularly fascinated by his progress with animatronic eyes. We don’t speak Greek and can’t decipher Cogley’s cryptic version identification scheme, but he has built a whole bunch of these and the latest revision is very good. Each eyeball can roll in any direction and each eyelid can blink. Those all operate independently, so your animatronics can move however you like.
But the biggest news today is the launch of Cogley’s online shop, NM Robotics, with products that you can take advantage of when you tackle your next animatronic project.
The EyeMech ε3.1 3D-printable mechanisms are open source and now available for download. You can grab those and print them without spending a dime. But Cogley would like to make some money from the ridiculous amount of work he’s put into this and so he’ll be selling two main product lines to accompany those mechanisms: eyeballs and controllers.
We certainly don’t blame Cogley for that, especially after other manufacturers sold his designs without permission — one of which even ended up in SZA’s “Snooze” music video (the song won a Grammy and several other notable awards).
The β1.2 EyeMech Board, built around a Raspberry Pi RP2040 microcontroller, makes is easy to connect EyeMech servos and to control them. It is available for preorder at a price of £18.00 GBP (about $23.18 USD), which is a very reasonable price.
The really exciting products, however, are the eyeballs. There are currently two lines: the normal “Realistic Eyeballs” and the “Premium Ultra Realistic Eyeballs.” Both are compatible with EyeMech ε3.1 assemblies and are 3D-printed by JLCPCB using a very detailed White Jet Process (WJP). That is pretty incredible, as the 3D structure and color variations of the iris are visible through the clear lenses.
Both lines of eyeballs are available for preorder on NM Robotics in a variety of colors. The normal eyeballs are £15.00 GBP and the Premium Ultra Realistic versions are £28.00 GBP. Discounts are available for both when ordered in pairs.