Discourse Analysis of Designing and Constructing an Animatronic Head

This introductory paragraph of this paper can be read here:

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“Designing and Constructing an Animatronic Head Capable of Human Motion Programmed using Face-Tracking Software” is Robert Fitzpatrick’s Capstone Project Report for his master’s degree in Robotics Engineering from Worcester Polytechnic Institute. The pursuit of a master’s degree both shows Fitzpatrick’s depth of knowledge in robotics and places him at the crossroad of engineering and academia. This report was completed on May 1, 2010 and is published on WPI’s website. Fitzpatrick set out to create an animatronic head that could mimic human motion with the goal of learning about animatronics. In addition to his educational pursuits, he sought to utilize face-tracking technology programming the movements of the head, which is a new technology in the animatronics field. Fitzpatrick’s report documents his engineering process as he developed the mechanism for animating the head and utilized motion-tracking software to program the movements. Fitzpatrick’s paper is an excellent example of engineering academic papers and the techniques employed in this style of writing, which can be analyzed to better understand the tools that make academic writing successful.