As Christina Ernst prepared her Halloween costume for this year, she drew on her engineering knowledge, and the classic animated movie Ratatouille.
Her creation received more than nine million views in less than a week, thanks in part to a repost from one of the film’s actors.
“I think it’s something that just brings a lot of joy and whimsy to people to see these really over-engineered projects. So I’m glad so many people like that,” Ernst told As It Happens guest host Peter Armstrong.
Ernst, the Chicago Public Library’s fall maker-in-residence, designed a functioning version of the rodent from the 2007 Pixar classic. In the film, a rat named Remy, who dreams of becoming a cook in Pairs, teams up with a restaurant’s garbage boy, Alfredo Linguini.
“They find out that if Remy pulls on this human’s hair, kind of like a marionette, that he can control the human’s cooking,” said Ernst. Remy controls Alfredo’s cooking and movements, and the two work together to create culinary masterpieces.
Ernst’s design mimics this, with the help of computer programming, motors and artistic flair.
How it’s made
Ernst made a headband and then attached it to a 3D-printed rat figurine that sits on top of her head. Inside the rat, Ernst added some tiny motors, and a very tiny computer to make the rat’s arms move.
“When it’s put inside of the rat design that’s sitting on my head, it looks less like a jumble of wires and more like an actual rat is pulling my hair,” said Ernst.
When she first posted her invention last week, the robot’s arms would move randomly. But when she posted the video on TikTok, people had a suggestion for her. They suggested the rat’s arms move in sync with hers.
“And I thought, I actually think I can do this with another tiny computer chip called an accelerometer,” said Ernst.
She posted a new video only two days later, showing the updated Remy that, with the help od the accelerometer and some wiring running up her sleeves, can now move its arms in sync with her own.
The video has been shared all over social media, and even made its way to the actor who voiced Remy in Ratatouille.
“Oh my God WOW are you KIDDING me,” Patton Oswalt posted on X, formerly known as Twitter, in reaction to Ernst’s video.
Inspiring girls in STEM
It’s not the first creation Ernst has made and shared on her TikTok account @shebuildsrobots.
She has made a dress with robotic snakeheads, that will look you in the eye, a dress that looks like a stained-glass window with flickering candlelight, and a functioning Venus flytrap hat.
“I love to sew. I love to design. But I also have a degree in computer engineering. So these are things that seem a little hard to combine, but I try to where I can,” said Ernst.
While Ernst has received a lot of support for her invention, there are still those who tear her down in the comments.
“You’ll see a lot of people commenting on my video, something along the lines of, ‘she didn’t make this, her boyfriend made this. She’s just the one posting about it,'” she said.
“The sentiment clearly is still there, even when they’re seeing proof right in front of their eyes that girls can excel at these things.”
She hopes that through her social media posts, and her website SheBuildsRobots, she can break that stereotype and inspire more girls to get into science, technology, engineering, and mathematics [STEM] fields.
“It really is my mission to just be that positive role model for young people, for girls to show that this is a field that they can thrive in.”
