Google engineer wows internet with 'robotic Medusa dress' which is both creepy and cool

economictimes.indiatimes.com:

Christina Ernst, a software engineer at Google, has taken the internet by storm with her latest creation: a "robotic Medusa dress." This one-of-a-kind invention, described by Ernst as the “world’s first AI dress,” features robotic snakes that can detect and follow faces, making it both a technological marvel and a fashion statement.

Ernst shared the video of her dress on her Instagram page, "She Builds Robots," which she uses to inspire girls to explore robotics. The post quickly went viral, amassing over 2.9 million views. In the video, Ernst expresses her excitement about completing the project and takes viewers through her journey of building the dress, including the various challenges and prototypes she encountered along the way.

Crafting the Robotic Medusa

The dress, equipped with four 3D-printed snakes, includes one snake that uses AI technology to detect faces and mimic the head movements of a real snake. Ernst detailed the process in her video, explaining, “I learned to create TinkerCAD models to create snake bodies, then I 3D printed them, spray painted them, and added a rotating motor.” She cleverly hid the motor in a pocket and used cardboard to finalize the moving body design.

To make the snakes move, Ernst drew inspiration from automata toys. She aimed to keep the dress lightweight by reducing the number of motors and soldering them directly onto the fabric. “My robotic Medusa dress is finally done,” she proudly declared in the video, flaunting her creation.

Overcoming challenges and making magic

Er