Taken from cnet,  Himawari, which means “sunflower” in Japanese, exhibits a lifelike, if slightly eerie, quality when moving slowly. A group of 48 white LEDs in the head twinkle in response to detected movement. Eighty actuators that use shape memory alloy move other parts of the flower for added effect.

Why build a robot plant? Nakayasu has apparently been influenced by the charmingly absurd creations of Dutch artist Theo Jansen, whose skeletal kinetic sculptures also seem slightly alive, but his message seems to be communication.

“That movement of the flower stem and the blossoming towards the sun seems to communicate a message,” Nakayasu writes. “(The robot’s) slow, weak and slender movements interact with human motion, trying to communicate, the same way a sunflower communicates with the morning sun.”

Here’s a video on it:

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Tags: Himawari, Himawari Robot, robot, Robotics, Sunflower robot