As robotics technology becomes more advanced and more accessible, we’ve seen an increase in robotic companion products come to market, intended to simulate human interaction.

Sphero’s latest product, Ultimate Lightning McQueen, displays the company’s engineering and design mastery of life-like robotics technology. Similar to the BB-8 Droid, this new product in partnership with Pixar is packed with impressive animatronics features that bring the product to life.

And a quick look at Lightning's life-like movement (automatic as well as activated by touch) beneath his exterior:

For this teardown, we’re going to focus on some of the most important features that deliver this life-like result:

1. Emotive suspension - Lightning’s front wheels can move in 2 axes, mimicking what you see in the Cars movie, giving this toy a life-like quality.

2. Animatronic face - an animatronic mouth piece combined with eyes displayed by a custom LCD give Lightning facial expressions and personality.

3. Capacitive touch sensors - there are five sensors installed on the top enclosure so the product reacts to being touched.

Quick reminder that Fictiv is a manufacturing platform and our expertise is around the mechanical side of hardware development. So for teardowns, we dig into the mechanical systems and leave the electrical analysis to our EE friends.

Let's dive in!