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Completed

Facial Recognition Servo Tracker

Built an OpenCV face-tracking system that drives two servo motors in real time via MQTT — hardware designed in Fusion 360 and 3D printed.

Coding Electronics Robotics 3D Modeling

A system that detects a face via webcam and physically moves two servo motors to track it — simulating an animatronic eye mechanism.

How It Works

A Python script on a laptop uses OpenCV to detect faces from a Logitech webcam in real time. The laptop publishes tracking coordinates over MQTT to a Raspberry Pi, which drives two servo motors used as linear actuators for the eye movement.

The hardware — servo mounts, arm pieces, and gears — was designed in Fusion 360 and 3D printed.

Servo tracker build

Close-up of the eye mechanism

Stack

  • Python + OpenCV for face detection
  • MQTT for laptop → Raspberry Pi communication
  • Raspberry Pi GPIO for servo control
  • Fusion 360 + FDM 3D printing for the enclosure