Man Spends $50,000 To Build His Own Scarlett Johansson Robot
Don’t try this at home.
Everyone loves an unconventional love story, particularly tall tales of geeky guys landing the women of their dreams. Then there’s this guy.
Ricky Ma, an unlucky-in-love graphic and product designer from Hong Kong, dropped over $50,000 and a year and a half of his life to building a humanoid robot named “Mark 1.” Though the 41-year-old could have gone with any design, he chose to give his automaton distinctively female characteristics and to outfit it in a short skirt and slinky crop top.
In fact, Ma admits that he modeled its physicality off his Hollywood dream girl, though he refused to name names. After the story blew up on social media, eagle-eyed Internet commentators were quick to draw comparisons to Scarlett Johansson. They have a point (See below).
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To achieve full Scar-Jo effect, about 70 percent of Mark 1’s body was created by 3D printing technology. Its skin is made of silicone, and the intricate circuitry beneath was assembled through trial and error.
Ma’s efforts culminated in some pretty impressive—and impressively creepy—features. When told, “Mark 1, you are so beautiful,” the silicon skin around the robot’s eyes relaxes, and its lips mimic a coy smile as it responds, “Hehe, thank you.”
Ma says the process was anything but easy. He faced ridicule from many in Hong Kong, where building your own Scarlett Johansson is evidently not common practice. “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,'” Ma lamented to Reuters.
He seems pretty giddy about the results. Ma said that if his striking robot were to catch the eyes of investors, he would build more. He even hopes to write a book about his experience to help those of you who also wish to make robots modeled after Hollywood’s hottest actresses.
We still recommend Tinder. Or, you know, talking to a girl.
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