Animatronic Mouths

           Any robot that you build will likely need the ability to speak since it is the primary method of communication for us humans. To create a sense of realism in your animatronics a mouth that actually moves presents a more believable animatron, even if it does not mimic a human's mouth perfectly. Alternate approaches to using moving mouths involve spectrography or just lighting up LEDs.
           In this tutorial I will show you two simple methods for building a believable robotic mouth. One articulated and moveable, the other an LCD flashing design. Both animatronic mouth designs create a believable illusion for your animatronic robot and can be built on a modest DIY budget.


Animatronic Mouths Demonstration Video

Articulated Animatronic Mouth

LCD Robotic Mouth

Purpose & Overview of this project
           This tutorial aims to create two different styles of robotic mouths. The first robotic mouth should be a mouth that moves up and down being articulated by a servo motor actuator. The second design will consist of an LCD display with high power backlight that can be switched on and off. Both designs create an illusion of a mouth moving as it speaks.
           Once built, the software for controlling either the servo motor movement or LCD backlight flashes should be easy to sync with spoken words, which will be demonstrated in a short video in the data section of this tutorial. The articulated animatronic mouth will be added to the animatronic face from the two tutorials: Animatronic Eyebrows and Animatronic Eyes. The LCD mouth will be built on a mock-up face for demonstration.