50-Foot Robot Helps Unlock Body’s Mysteries
She’s extremely leggy, with more brains than could fill a mini-van. On the other hand, she is incorrigibly exhibitionistic and weighs 7,000 pounds.
Tess, short for “test dummy,” is a 50-foot transparent robot created by Attraction Services Inc. to teach visitors to the California Museum of Science and Industry the mechanics and mysteries of their bodies.
The larger-than-life lady will be the featured attraction at the museums’s “World of Life” exhibit beginning in February.
“Tess is going to help make science more fun and accessible to people,” Ann Muscat, the museum’s deputy director, said as Tess was unveiled this week.
Workers at the Santa Clarita-based special effects company used fiberglass, silicon, plastic and steel over a four-year period to make Tess look like a woman. Her feet are the size of Roman bathtubs and her fists are larger than refrigerators.
With the help of pneumatic pumps and pulleys, she is able to move her limbs, even controlling a 6-foot joystick.
She knows the physiology of her body and everyone else’s and she will explain it, using an actress’ taped voice.
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