Make Your Own Mad-Eye Moody Magic Eyeball
This prosthetic eyeball moves under Arduino and servo control.
Before COVID made such gatherings inadvisable, creator “replayreb’s” son went to a party dressed as Professor Alastor “Mad-Eye” Moody, from the Harry Potter series. Of course, Mad-Eye is so named for his distinct magical prosthetic eyeball, which replayreb decided to reproduce with an Arduino, servo, and a ping pong ball.
The build is fairly simple, but well executed with a bit of comedic flair as seen below. The eyeball housing is constructed from a rubber pipe end cap, and held into place with a leather dog collar. Inside, a servo is connected to the eyepiece in such a way that its body moves rather than the horn.
Half of a ping pong ball is then stuck to the moving servo body using Velcro and decorated with blue and black stickers for the iris and pupil respectively To finish things off, replayreb cut a hole in a brass-colored salsa jar, attaching cut-off screws for a brass ring effect. The moniker of “MILD” on the side was not part of the books or movie as far as I know.
User interface consists of a potentiometer, which the Arduino translates into servo signals and sends to the motor via a 3.5mm stereo connector. The wearer can more or less match the prosthetic eyeball’s movements with his other eye, or look the other way for a potentially even crazier effect.
