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Concept
Audio-Animatronics
Summary
Audio-Animatronics (also known as simply Animatronics, and sometimes shortened to AAs) is the registered trademark for a form of robotics animation created by Walt Disney Imagineering for shows and attractions at Disney theme parks, and subsequently expanded on and used by other companies. The robots move and make noise (generally a recorded speech or song), but are usually fixed to whatever supports them. They can sit and stand but usually cannot walk. An Audio-Animatronic is different from an android-type robot in that it uses prerecorded movements and sounds, rather than responding to external stimuli. In 2009, Disney debuted an interactive version of the technology called Autonomatronics, and in 2018, announced aerial stunt figures called Stuntronics.
Audio-Animatronics were originally a creation of Walt Disney employee Lee Adams, who worked as an electrician at the Burbank studio and was one of Disney's original Imagineers. Walt Disney got a mechanical toy bird in New Orleans, and he decided to improve the device that moved it. An early robotic figure was the Dancing Man, created by Roger Broggie and Wathel Rogers, and modeled after a tap dancing routine by actor Buddy Ebsen.
The term "Audio-Animatronics" was first used commercially by Disney in 1961, was filed as a trademark in 1964, and was registered in 1967.
The Audio-Animatronic show The Enchanted Tiki Room opened in 1963 at Disneyland. It is a room full of tropical creatures with eye and facial actions synchronized to a musical score entirely by electromechanical means. The Audio-Animatronic cast of the musical revue uses tones recorded on tape to vibrate a metal reed that closes a circuit to trigger a relay, which sends a pulse of electricity to a mechanism that causes a pneumatic valve to move part of the figure.
The movements of the attraction's birds, flowers, and tiki idols are triggered by sound. Figures' movements have a neutral "natural resting position" that the limb or part returns to when there is no electric pulse present.
Official source
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