Will Cogley, known for his awesome animatronics, has created a robotic mouth that’s already a work of art and could form the basis of something even more amazing.
The device features an array of servo mechanisms to actuate its jaw, forceps, cheeks, and a tongue. The cheek assemblies are particularly interesting, employing two servos each and a linkage system that allows it to move in a variety of positions.
For control, the project uses a Python program to break typed sentences up into individual sounds. It then sends these to an Arduino, which poses the mouth in sequence. Cogley has also experimented with microphone input and hopes to explore motion capture with it in the future.