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A themed cake is often an essential component of a birthday party for many six-year-old children.

But this mother and father from Perth, Australia, have earned the adulation of parents worldwide after going a step further by constructing a shape-shifting Transformers cake for their son Ewan.

Software designer Russell Munro spent months creating the Optimus Prime surprise - after drawing up a plan, getting it 3D printed, assembling the parts and then making it run electrically.

Exciting: Ewan, watched by his mother, was clearly delighted by the cake as it stood up from its truck position

Happy: The voice of the Autobots leader could also be heard with two quotes from the 2007 Transformers film

Astonished faces: Other excited children around the table at the birthday party said 'oooh' and 'oh my God'

Ewan, six - who was wearing a Transformers outfit - was clearly delighted by the cake as it stood up from its truck position, while other excited children around the table said ‘oooh’ and ‘oh my God’.

The voice of the Autobots leader could also be heard with two quotes from the 2007 film of ‘at the end of this day, one shall stand, one shall fall’ and ‘my name is Optimus Prime’.

Describing the construction as an ‘animated cake platform’, Mr Munro said he wound up steel fishing wire with a stepper motor which pulled the 3D skeleton to a standing position.

He added the head was lifted and the arms were opened by a DC motor with a leadscrew – and that his wife made the cake and icing, which helped cover the working mechanism.

Since Mr Munro posted the video on YouTube it has been viewed more than 120,000 times, while another clip showing the mechanism inside has been seen almost 20,000 times.

Big effort: Software designer Russell Munro spent months creating the Optimus Prime surprise - after drawing up a plan, getting it 3D printed, assembling the parts and then making it run electrically

Impressive: Since Ewan's father Russell Munro posted the video on YouTube it has been viewed more than 120,000 times, while another clip showing the mechanical mechanism has been since almost 20,000 times

Behind the scenes: Describing the construction as an ‘animated cake platform’, the father said he wound up steel fishing wire with a stepper motor which pulls the 3D skeleton to a standing position

2007 film: Ewan's cake was based on Optiums Prime, who is the Autobots leader in Transformers (pictured)

But he said that the cake will not be auctioned off to the highest bidder, adding: ‘I won't sell it as because the design was awfully fiddly and frustrating with heaps of small screw.

The design was awfully fiddly and frustrating Russell Munro, father

‘But I was considering making it an open source project and see what other people could do.'

Mr Munro also stated: ‘They can and did eat it, the mud cake and icing. Some of the red cab was Styrofoam to lighten the load a bit as mud cake is real dense and heavy.’

The father is a senior consultant for Perth-based IT company Ignia, which says it specialises in 'cloud and mobility innovations' for governments, utility firms and financial companies.