For over 50 years, Disneyland and its sister parks have been a showcase for increasingly technically proficient versions of its "animatronic" characters. First pneumatic and hydraulic, and more recently fully electronic, these figures create a feeling of life and emotion inside rides and attractions, in shows and, increasingly, in interactive ways throughout the parks. The machines they're creating are becoming more active and mobile in order to better represent the wildly physical nature of the characters they portray within the expanding Disney universe. And a recent addition to the pantheon could change the way that characters move throughout the parks and influence how we think about mobile robots at large. I wrote recently about the new tack Disney was taking with self-contained characters that felt more flexible, interactive and, well, alive than "static," pre-programmed animatronics.

Disney already has humans performing stunts at places like Shanghai Disneyland. And of course, they already have animatronic figures, but those guys aren't exactly made to fly. Take the "Shaman" character in an "Avatar"-themed attraction in Florida, for example. "It's a very, very sophisticated, very, very expressive animatronic figure," says Tony Dohi, a principle R&D "imagineer" with Walt Disney Imagineering Research and Development. "Yet it's definitely not something we'd want to throw 90 feet across an outdoor space."

The process of making a Disney park feel alive is most easily encapsulated in animatronic figures. These hydraulic, pneumatic and now electric figures have been a fixture at Disneyland since the 60s. Since then, massive advancements have been made in control systems, movement architecture and programming. The most advanced animatronic figures like the Na'Vi Shaman in Disney World's Na'vi River Journey are plain and simply robots. But not every animatronic in the parks can be a simple pneumatic connected to a bulky master system or a highly advanced and complex robotic masterwork.

President Donald Trump will join all the past presidents of the United States at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, in June this year. "Donald Trump ran a Presidential campaign on hateful speech, misogyny, racism and xenophobia. In doing so, he has tainted the legacy of the American Presidency forever," the petition by Brooklyn, New York-based Matthew Rogers reads. "The Magic Kingdom at Disney World is a place specifically designed for the enjoyment of children and families. Therefore, it is not an appropriate place for a Donald Trump speech."