Dutch Engineering Student Created Incredible Exoskeletal Mechanical Dinosaur Costume

Dutch engineering student Esmée Kramer created an incredible exoskeletal mechanical dinosaur costume for herself. The idea for the design came to Kramer one day and she was determined to make it so. She determined what materials she needed, sketched out the design and went forward with the build. Because this was a personal project, the construction took a bit of time, particularly when she encountered some challenges.

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“I’m a student in Network & Systems Engineering (Robots, networks and programming and stuff) and I built a dinosaur in my spare time. I got the idea in my head, thought it would be cool to make. So yeah, why not? I hope you like the result!” she wrote.

“As for how long it took me, I did not count my hours. I’ve been building since my summer break 2018, although some sketches came before that. But I got school and work as well so it was not a full time project. I’m still planning on making some adjustments, but for now I got some other things to focus on.”

“First thing to figure out was what material to use. I chose to go with PVC pipes, because they’re kinda cheap and light. Plus they’re easy to work with.”

“Next step: Sketching… Lots of thinking and sketching. And that actually kept going throughout the rest of the process.”

“The most challenging part was figuring out how to move the head in all the different directions. I designed the head to be able to move up and down, left and right and to rotate. In order to make the movements more natural I also needed some control over the neck.”

“The way the costume leans on my hips/shoulders kindoff functions as a seesaw in which I am the fulcrum. This way I don’t have to move my body a lot in order for the dinosaur to lean forward or backward. I can adjust it’s pose by pushing or pulling the handle I use to control the head. This spares my own back and also makes the movements appear a little smoother.”

“The tail has two inflection points, I used a little bit of garden hose between the pvc parts. It also contains a fiberglass stick that I found in the garage so the tail returns to a straight position. I can swing it by moving my body.”