We loosely modeled our project on the image above. We used some creative license to reimagine Douglas Adam's supercomputer Deep Thought from Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy.
Using makeabox.io (which was troublesome), we laser cut the base and polyhedron head from 3mm plywood. The neck was fashioned from a 3D printed vase found on Thingaverse (http://www.thingiverse.com/search?q=sculpture+08&sa=). We modeled brains using insulation foam and created an aged, weathered appearance using wood putty and spray paints.
Richard then created the LED effects using rpi_ws281x library (https://github.com/jgarff/rpi_ws281x) on a Raspberry Pi. Deep Thought is able to recognize speech using the SpeechRecognition Python library (https://github.com/jgarff/rpi_ws281x) and Pocket Sphinx (https://pypi.python.org/pypi/pocketsphinx).
The LEDs are activated when Deep Thought is given an important question to ponder, such as "What is the meaning of life, the universe and everything?" When Deep Thought responds, after about 7.5 million years or so, it will provide an appropriate answer, like 42.