When most people dream of meeting their celebrity crushes in person, those dreams stay unfulfilled. Unless you're really lucky, there's only a very slight chance of actually coming face-to-face with a celebrity crush, especially if he/she is a Hollywood A-lister. Peter Ma, however, isn't like most people.
The 42-year-old product and graphic designer and engineer decided to do something about his childhood dream of creating a humanoid. The thing is, Ma successfully designed his female robot prototype to look like Captain America: Civil War star Scarlett Johansson. While Ma didn't specify to Reuters whether he modelled the robot after the 31-year-old actress, the resemblance is obvious.
Ma told Reuters:
When I was a child, I liked robots. Why? Because I liked watching animation. All children loved it. There were Transformers, cartoons about robots fighting each other and games about robots.
After I grew up, I wanted to make one. But 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.'
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.
The robot and animation-obsessed engineer said he designed and built the $50,000 Mark 1 robot over the course of 18 moths on the balcony of his Hong Kong apartment. Mark 1, or ScarJo's robot, is made up of a 3D-printed skeleton which supports the different electronic and mechanical pieces in the robot all encased within a pliable silicone skin.
Ma is planning to sell the prototype to an investor and use his earnings to fund more robots. The Scarlett Johansson robot may look like the actress, but it can barely act like a good one. The humanoid can only offer a set of programmed responses to certain commands. Still, it's pretty impressive for a self-taught robot enthusiast.
I wonder what the real Scar Jo thinks of all this.
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