This is version 2 of the remote controlled parrot Rosalinda, now with digital control. She does not exist anymore since she died in a house fire in February 2014. It was only a week after her last stage performance. She was a puppet the in production “Pippi on the Seven Seas” that Värmland theater did as a guest performance in Säffle.


The picture above was taken shortly after the fire. She was soaked by the extinguishing water, oily and sooty. Her back feathers (fabric) had burned / melted and she stenched heavily of smoke. She looked pretty good to watch but unfortunately there is much toxic in smoke because of the artificial materials we have in our homes. The substances in the smoke makes plastic dissolve and metals corrode.

Then what was new in version 2 compared to Rosalinda 1?

Well the big news was that she had become more sophisticated and remote-controlled by means of electronics.

The feet and the perch had been reused, but the skull, spine and body are completely new and was printed with a Makerbot Replicator 3D printer.

Above you can see the 3D model of Rosalinda’s head with the top vertebra. By making a digital model of the head, it was easier to get a sense of proportions and ensure that all servo motors would fit.

The construction had to be splitted into several parts as it was too big to be printed in the Makerbot. The vertibes are shown in the picture above.

Rosalinda’s upper and lower eyelids in 3D format. When the servo pulled the levers both eyelids closed and met in the middle in the closed position.

Instead of, as in Rosalinda 1, having lines that went down through the perch to the levers under the castle, it was now a total of ten servo motors that pulled the wires (brake cables for bicycle) to translate the power into mechanical movement.

  • Five servomotors pulling in four cables so that she will be able to bend his head in all directions. If you wonder why there are five servos to four wires that is the reason I series two servos to able to lift his head up. Other directions did not require as much power. A stronger power would take too much space so I chose to series connect two standard size instead.
  • A servo to open her beak
  • Another servo allows her to turn her head.
  • A mini servo makes her blink. Both the upper and lower eyelids were controlled with the same servo.
  • I mounted two servos to control the wings. But I did not finish the mechanics before the premiere so they were never used.

Rosalinda’s brain consisted of an Arduino Nano microcontroller. The power supply comprised of rechargeable AA batteries.

Rosalinda was puppeteered by my thirteen year old son Alexander using a Nunchuck.

A wireless Wii Nunchuk is a handheld device with joystick and buttons that really is an accessory for the Wii video game consoles. It is however perfectly possible to connect to the Arduino and use the interactive control.

A nice thing is that it can detect you tilting it in different directions or raise it up and down.

I used the Nunchuck as follows:

  • Tilting forward or back = Rosalinda bends her neck forward or back
  • Tilting left or right = Rosalinda bends her neck to the left or right
  • The joystick moving back = Rosalinda open her beak
  • The joystick is moved to left or right = Rosalinda turns her head left or right
  • Press the button = Rosalinda flashes her eyelids

Strong steel wire rings formed the neck at which the fabric later was attached.

I was always careful to disconnect the batteries when Rosalinda was not in use to save power. But after the premiere, I left her a while longer. After a while I felt the smell of burnt bakelite. It turned out that the two servo motors that were connected in series to keep Rosalinda’s heads up had begun to melt by heat. Luckily, this happened after the show and I had extra servos to replace the ones destroyed.

Replacing the servos was not easy. It was hard enough to reach the small screws and nuts when I mounted the servos for the first time. Now there were wires, lines, plumage etc. in the way. But after some work and a little swearing she was fit for fight for the show the following day.

Rest in peace Rosalinda, we had fun together even though it was stressful at the end!

What could I have done differently …

Think about the weight. Although each material separately is lightweight it will add to the total weight. A leverage effect is added, because of Rosalinda’s head  on her long neck, that increases the stress on the engines.