Pixar's Little Lamp Is Alive!

Remember how before every single Pixar movie you see a little lamp hobbling it's way on the screen? No? Does this image bring back the memories? 

So- that lamp, named by Pixar as Luxo inspired 3 students from New Zealand to create a robot version of it. Called Pinokio, the object was created using 6 servos (motors used for controlling a system/process), a processor and a webcam.

Human beings have always been fascinated with robots (*cough* China, Korea, Japan *cough*) and when I watched this defenseless lamp come alive all I could think about was the movie, Terminator. Moving on...Pinokio tracks movement and reacts to the surrounding environment among other things. It relies on OpenCV (programming functions)...in other words- a lot of coding to make it what it is today. I'll avoid the programming jargon and leave you with this video but not before saying- I WANT!