Someone Made A Real Wall-E And His Eyes Are Just As Sad As They Should Be

According to Michael McMaster’s Blogger profile, he “lives on a 90 acre citrus farm in Central California, and builds robots as a hobby.”

Michael McMaster might just have the best life in the world.

As part of YouTube’s Geek Week, a profile of his latest project has just emerged: a life-size working replica of Pixar’s Wall-E which will probably be used to do this kind of stuff:

Tested.com visited his farm in Bakersfield, CA, to chat with McMaster about the project and the Wall-E Builders Club. McMaster had co-founded the Yahoo group in 2007, a year before the movie had even come out — and five years later, they’d made this.

It’s not the first time McMaster has done something like this. In 2004, he completed his first replica of Star Wars’ R2-D2; an easier venture considering they had real working robots to reference. “Wall-E was a lot more difficult,” he concedes.

Also, heaps cuter.

To scale the robot, they used the known objects in the film, like a Rubik’s cube and a VHS tape; they started with the hands, and worked in reverse from there. The hardest part was keeping him functional. “We wanted it to look like it does in the movie, but it still had to work in the real world,” McMaster says. “And of course with CGI, you don’t have to worry about the real world physics and making things operate properly.”

The remote control allows you to drive him with the right hand and manipulate his adorable little head with the left, with a gear switch to move the sad, sad eyebrows, and remotes on the side to play sounds and music. (He makes the Apple start-up sound when you turn him on. Perfect.)

You want to make us one yourself? Yes please, we would like that, thank you. Head to McMaster’s Yahoo Group: The Wall-E Builders Club.