A south west London man has built a working robot in his home garage.
Graphic designer Mike Simpkins, 48, built Horus 2 himself as a creative outlet and has since displayed it at a Science Museum exhibition.
Simpkins, who moved to the UK from South Africa in 1998, said he loved the creative aspect of teaching himself machining, electronics and 3D-printing among other disciplines.
He said: “I could just knuckle down and make stuff, I think on a very simplistic level, that’s what it was.
“Busy hands, for a person like me, make my life a little bit happier.”
Simpkins set himself the goal of ensuring that every part of the machine was visually beautiful, and stood out both as a piece by itself and as part of the whole robot.
Horus 2 was created primarily with aluminium and SLA printed resin and is designed to be a robotic sculpture, intending to fuse Simpkins’ artistic passion with an interest engineering.
The machine makes carefully crafted and precise movements to imitate an awareness with its surroundings.
He has toiled away at the project for a long time, often waiting years for the technology he was experimenting with to become usable in a domestic setting.
“It’s been in the garage, like literally been in my garage for the last few years.
“I’ve just been tinkering away at it it.”
After reaching out to local special effects studio FBFX, known for their work on the Star Wars and Marvel movies, Simpkins was put in contact with the Science Museum for a science fiction exhibition.
Despite any apprehension he had about presenting his work, Simpkins was delighted to find the public were taken with Horus 2.
He said: “It was actually really lovely.”
“The people were completely engaged, they genuinely seemed to like the robot.
“There was a mixture of reactions to it, some people were slightly freaked out by him and other people felt like Horus was their new buddy,
“Even though it didn’t have eyes, for instance, it still had a lot of character.”
Photo credit: Mike Simpkins (used with permission)
What comes next?
In the short-term, Mike’s goal is to improve aspects of Horus 2 to make it a better display piece.
His aim is to ensure that it engages better with what is happening around it.
But he says he’s also looking to add more strings to his bow and hopes to collaborate with others on bigger effects projects such as prosthetics.
Simpkins said: “When I was a child, I dreamt of working in special effects.
“Somehow a more cautious disposition and pragmatic approach to life led me into a world of graphic design.
“But you never know what the future might hold.”
Featured image credit: Mike Simpkins (used with permission)
