The team started with an outdated food delivery drone model, obtained from “a friend of a friend,” as the mobile platform on which to build out the rest of the construct. “When companies get rid of these things, if they're cool pieces of hardware, there are plenty of engineers around the city who like to modify them and turn them into fun projects,” Howard explained. “There's a big community of people who are sharing cool hardware around.
The nearly 400-pound robot measures roughly five feet long on a side and about four feet tall, narrow enough to fit on a sidewalk and into the TEU container workshop in which it was built at. The wheeled base is controlled remotely and manually, while the puppet’s performance — from the hand and head movements to the big disco ball reveal — are all part of a prerecorded act, akin to Chuck E Cheese’s animatronic Pizza Players band.