Christina Ernst (27), a Chicago-based senior software engineer at Google’s Consumer Trust Team,’s latest creation, ‘Medusa’, is going viral on social media. The Gen Z techie who joined Google right after college, started her side hustle, She Builds Robot, in 2018, creating wearable robotics and more. Her latest wearable blends the prowess of robotics and AI, creating the world’s very first AI dress. The dress features a 3D-printed Medusa Snake’s head and body that she designed on TinkerCAD and Blender.

In her Instagram video, Ernst describes what went into making the robotic snake AI dress. Using Useful Sensors, she integrated a person sensor on the heads of the snakes that would sense and move towards an individual facing her. The AI that detects the face runs TensorFlow AI. Earlier, Christina uploaded the WIP videos, including the working and failed prototypes. She tweaked and tinkered with every bit of the dress, from motors to moving snake heads and the codes, until they looked near perfect. For the Medusa Snakes, she took inspiration from automata toys and worked on minimizing the number of motors to keep her dress light. She ran a design test with the help of a cardboard prototype and then proceeded to design and sew the dress herself. She quips that it was “as much math as engineering.” Ernst remarks that there’s still a lot of room for improvement.

Christina Ernst earned her Bachelor’s in Computer Engineering from the University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign (2015–2019). Her first stint at Google was as a program participant at the Google Science Summer Institute in July 2015. During her graduation, she interned thrice at the Alphabet company: twice as Engineering Practicum Intern in 2016 and 2017; and once as Software Engineering Intern in 2018. The prodigious talent joined the tech giant as Software Engineer in 2019, post her graduation. Her side hustle, ‘She Builds Robots’, has been prominently featured in various publications, including Forbes, Make Magazine and more. The Medusa was recently selected for the Chicago Public Library’s Fall Maker-in-Residence 2024 program. She will also mentor how to create wearable electronics at the Washington Library’s Maker’s Lab starting September. Check out her Linkedin profile for more info.

Christina Ernst in her stained glass dress, embedded with flickering candlelight LED

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