News From The Future – Robot Patient Gags When Visiting the Dentist…

The robot is designed to help dental students practice, so researchers at Showa University made it as realistic as possible. That means it chokes, coughs, sneezes, moves its tongue and even gets a sore jaw. The builders worked with Japan’s leading maker of “love dolls” for adults, Orient Industry, to make the skin, tongue and mouth.

The tongue and arms have two degrees of freedom, so the robot can mimic a patient who starts to fidget while a dentist tries to perform prophylaxis. The skin is made of silicone and the tongue and cheek linings are made of one piece, so it feels more real — no obvious rubber seams, and no way for water to leak through and harm the machinery.

Make sure to watch the video around 2:43+ – perviously dental students learned by assisting low-income humans, another human segment displaced, by robots.