The days of simple sandcastle entertainment may be dwindling — Disney has developed the “world’s first autonomous sand art bot,” aptly titled “BeachBot.”

College students from ETH Zürich, the Swiss Federal Institute of Technology, worked alongside a Disney research firm in Zürich to produce a small robot resembling a turtle that etches drawings of Disney cartoons in sand.

Via Modvive

The official site notes that the “BeachBot is not just a lifeless, mechanical being; it is a friendly looking creature with a soul.”

As creepy as that sounds (which may have to do with a loss in translation?), if we’re going to personify BeachBot, it’s worth praising its large-scale sketches that appear to be hundreds of times its size.

Via BeachBot