By Andy Edser

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I don’t think they should make this

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I don’t want to give horror game devs any ideas but this chilling ‘sphere o’ mouths’ lip-syncing robot is haunting my dreams and I want it to stop

Andy Edser

16 September 2025

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Selectramatronics – YouTube

There I was last night, idly scrolling on my phone looking for interesting hardware news, when I stumbled across this absolute monstrosity, this dream-haunter, this affront to all that is good in this world. Okay, so it’s a pretty cool lip-syncing robot mouth project, but the results are so horrifying I demand that it be thrown into the ocean immediately.

The creator of this… thing is YouTuber Ancient, who’s been iterating on a “sphere o’ mouths” concept for robot lip-syncing (via Hackaday). Essentially, it’s a custom designed, 3D-printed ball of various mouth shapes, mounted inside a doll’s head and spun in various configurations so only one mouth is visible through the gaping maw in the front at any one time.

(Image credit: Ancient)
A stepper motor attached to a mechanism inside the frame spins the ball under the control of a Raspberry Pi, and the horrifying… I mean, intriguing result you see at the end of the video above is the result of part automation, part manual lip syncing to a selection of tunes. Oh, and did I mention there’s a custom brow-moving device, too?

Related Articles

I don’t think they should make this

‘It has to be 100 percent safe because I cannot escape it’: Study finds people are unsurprisingly creeped out by humanoid robots despite the industry’s obsession

Robots and heavy metal should be a match made in music heaven, but this collab in China is as exciting as your grandma moshing to Megadeth on metoprolol

In fact, even our jolly fellow’s hat appears to be custom designed and 3D-printed, making this project surprisingly in-depth. I’ve got a feeling that Ancient knows full well how horrifying the end result is, though, as they’ve chosen to forgo any sort of video narration, resulting in just over 13-minutes of clicks, clunks, whirrs, and eventually, a musical end result.

Is it the hiss before it launches into a rendition of Gilbert and Sullivan’s “Major-General’s Song” that causes the hairs on the back of my neck to rise, I wonder? Or the strange gurning the robot seems to perform in-between verses? No, I think the truly horrifying thing here is the vacant stare behind the eyes, combined with an unintentional glare that suggests it’s looking right through me.
Ugh. The uncanny valley effect is a well-documented phenomenon at this point, but as “eerie or unsettling” goes, this terrible machine takes the biscuit for me. It’s also very impressive in terms of concept and design, so I have to give top marks to Ancient, before taking them all away again and casting their creation into the fires of Mt. Doom.
It deserves no place in this world, I’m afraid, but I’ve got a funny feeling you might see something similar turning up in a horror game at some point soon. Goody.

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Hardware Writer

Andy built his first gaming PC at the tender age of 12, when IDE cables were a thing and high resolution wasn’t—and he hasn’t stopped since. Now working as a hardware writer for PC Gamer, Andy spends his time jumping around the world attending product launches and trade shows, all the while reviewing every bit of PC gaming hardware he can get his hands on. You name it, if it’s interesting hardware he’ll write words about it, with opinions and everything.

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I don’t think they should make this

‘It has to be 100 percent safe because I cannot escape it’: Study finds people are unsurprisingly creeped out by humanoid robots despite the industry’s obsession

Robots and heavy metal should be a match made in music heaven, but this collab in China is as exciting as your grandma moshing to Megadeth on metoprolol

If you were ever worried about a machine uprising, check out the World Humanoid Robot Games and have a giggle with me

Tiny anime girl cyberprison billing itself as a ‘customizable 3D digital soulmate’ reaches its Kickstarter funding goal in minutes

The deflating realization that a neat little game was AI all along

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