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This homemade Westworld robot will give you nightmares

Robot maker Simone Giertz builds her own robotic likeness that can talk, move and creep everyone out in honor of season 2 of HBO's sci-fi hit, Westworld.

Bonnie Burton
Journalist Bonnie Burton writes about movies, TV shows, comics, science and robots. She is the author of the books Live or Die: Survival Hacks, Wizarding World: Movie Magic Amazing Artifacts, The Star Wars Craft Book, Girls Against Girls, Draw Star Wars, Planets in Peril and more! E-mail Bonnie.
Bonnie Burton
2 min read

The androids in HBO's sci-fi series Westworld are indistinguishable from humans, which can be a very dangerous disguise. With that in mind, if you were tasked with making a humanoid robot, how would you do it?

To promote season 2 of Westworld, YouTuber and inventor Simone Giertz, who specializes in crappy robots, built an animatronic version of herself using a medical mannequin, Wild West-style clothes, a wig and makeup.

In Giertz's video, posted on Thursday, we see Giertz build the robot with some help from her friend. When Giertz takes her Westworld robot out for a spin, the results are both hilarious and horrifying in an uncanny valley kind of way.

The last part of the video is a re-creation of the Westworld theme park, with Giertz's robot playing the part of Evan Rachel Wood's character Dolores Abernathy. Seeing her robot mechanically flail its way across a field is one of the best parts of the video.

"If I'm SimOne, she's SimTwo," Giertz wrote on her YouTube page. "She now lives in my garage. We're on good terms."

Giertz previously built a "deal with it" meme robot, a drone that cuts hair, a face-slapping alarm clock, a manicure robot and a giant knife-wielding robot that can slice a grand piano. 

Season 2 of Westworld will air on HBO in the US, Sky Atlantic in the UK and Foxtel's Showcase in Australia from April 22.

Even more Westworld: Reserve your spot for our limited-edition weekly newsletter all about the sci-fi thriller Westworld.

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