Figures are usually encased in body shells and flexible skins made of hard and soft plastic materials and finished with colors, hair, feathers and other components to make them more lifelike.Ī Billy Bob animatronic with a child at a ShowBiz Pizza Place Motion actuators are often used to imitate muscle movements and create realistic motions. Animatronic figures can be implemented with both computer and human control, including teleoperation. Īnimatronics is a multidisciplinary field integrating puppetry, anatomy and mechatronics. Robots (or other artificial beings) designed to convincingly resemble humans are known as " androids". Since then, robots have become known as more practical programmable machines that do not necessarily resemble living creatures. They are a modern variant of the automaton and are often used for the portrayal of characters in films and in theme park attractions.īefore the term "animatronics" became common, they were usually referred to as " robots". Animatronics refers to mechatronic puppets.