This kinetic sculpture, built by David Bynoe, is meant to look like a field of wheat blowing in the wind. It consists of 40 wooden poles, each about 6 foot high, that are connected up via a system of ropes to a pair of large motorized cams. The two cam turns at slightly different speeds, so it takes about 14 minutes for the machine to complete a full cycle. It's a lovely effect that shows how complicated it can be to reproduce organic motion and the beauty found in nature.
This kinetic sculpture is at the Truck Gallery in Calgary, Alberta, Canada.The show runs from June 3rd-30th 2011.
Here is video of another history-based coin-operated donation box automton created by Carlos Zapata. This one depicts Henry Trengrouse and his life-saving apparatus for ships wrecked near the coast. The device used a rocket to fire a line from the shore to the ship. Incredible!
Here is a magnificent video that ws shown in the window of Obsolete in Venice, CA during Tom Haney's recent show titled Undaunted. The video features Tom Haney's automata and mechanical sculpture. I always admire the aged quality of his work, the beautiful style, use of found objects, and attention to detail.
Warren Ludwig, an illustrator and designer located near Kansas City, created this automaton called DiggerBot. This photo shows the automaton nearly done, but not yet painted. I happen to love it in this state, but the finished paint job also turned out great.
Be sure to check out Warren Ludwig's extensive blog coverage of the process of making this automaton. He takes you through the initial sketch, subject research, mechanical tests, trail-and-error engineering, construction details, and painting. It is a great representation of the process of a making an original automaton in my opinion. There are also some great modeling techniques in his entries as well. Good stuff!
Here's a little video-in-video snippet of the Cabaret Mechanical Video featuring Paul Spooner talking about his classic piece in which the Egyptian god Anubis does push ups. If you don't have the video, it's a wonderful look at many of the artists associated with Cabaret mechanical theatre. For those of us that were not lucky enough to visit their location in Covent Garden, London, it's a little look at what that time and place were like. This is a great video featuring lots of artists and automata.
OK, so the commercial is a little over-the-top and dubbed, but the moving wooden dinosaurs make up for it. These are pre-cut wooden kits you assemble to create one of several dinosaur models -- a lot like the static wooden puzzles. When you are done, you have a wooden dinosaur at your command. The Robotime dinosaurs also have a few simple autonomous behaviors that allow them to react to things they sense in the environment.
Robotime makes large and small versions of the Tyrannosaur, Triceratops, and Stegosaurus. Here's where you can get the Robotime wooden R/C dinosaur kits.
More unusual gears to start your week. A few years ago, there was a video of an impossibly cool animated paper-craft heart composed of gears by artist, Haruki Nakamura. Here is some fascinating time lapse footage showing the sculpture being assembled. I continue to be amazed by this mechanical paper marvel. I would love to know how this was designed.
Not long ago, I posted about some of the odd shaped gears created by clock-designer Clayton Boyer.
The folks at LEAFpdx.com have partnered with Clayton Boyer to offer the beautiful weird gears set shown in the video above and photographs below.
The boxed set includes 2 of the large pentagonal gears, 6 triangle gears, 6 square gears, axle pegs, and the specially marked base. The gears are laser-cut from cherry and come in a tidy basswood box. The gears can be arranged in a wide variety of configurations, most of which are delightfully mind-bending.
As with everything from LEAFpdx, the set is beautifully designed down to the smallest detail. If you are interested in mechanical things or are looking for a gift for someone who is, this is something you just won't find anywhere else.
Here is a elegantly crafted contemporary automaton depicting pegasus in flight. While the Pegasus theme has been done many times in the world contemporary automata, the all-LEGO construction is new to me.
Steve Garrison has come up with several innovative ways to cut gears from wood. His technique allows you to use various tools including a router, scroll saw, and table saw. In addition to making standard spur gears, his method allows you to cut helical and herringbone gears from wood. It is wooden herringbone gears that allows this ferocious wood machine to crush cans with ease.
From the YouTube description:
A reduction gear train made of pine plywood sheathing scraps laminated together with screws and powered by a 3/4 h.p. electric motor. Herringbone or Chevron gears are stronger than spur gears and do not have any tendency to move along the axle even under heavy loads. There are no bearings other than the center hole drilled through the plywood turning on half inch diameter smooth steel shafts lubricated with axle grease. The gear ratio is 72:1 not including the belt drive, the belt drive makes the overall ratio around 172:1 (About 10 rpm output with a 1720 rpm input from the motor).
This is an impressive display of power. Garrison's method can also be used to make gears for lighter duty jobs -- like the power train on Dave Johnson's Buckyball Moving Machine.
Visit Steve Garrison's web site to see videos and examples of his wood gear cutting technique. It is available as a 52-page e-book in PDF format.
While some of the Roullet et Decamps animal automata use real fur, I don't think they ever use entire animals. Inspired or creepy? The idea of using preserved mice in an automaton is fascinating to say the least!
From the ebay description:
The piece is one of a series of circus themes, and it is titled "The Lesson". The larger mouse who wears a ringleader style suit bounces high on his ball, while the smaller mouse only jumps a little way up. Juggling balls are scattered around where they have been practicing balancing and juggling. A very small mouse, too young to train yet, helps by picking up the balls and handing them back to the ringmaster.
Check out this video of a breathtakingly complex and beautiful automaton by François Junod. Junod and his team specialize in the manufacture and restoration of automata as well as custom made pieces such as the one shown here depicting Russian poet Alexander Pushkin. Considered a master in the art and craft of automata making, Junod is one of only a very few people making automata of this sophistication in the tradition of Pierre Jaquet-Droz and Henri Maillardet.
The Morris Museum in Morristown, NJ is home to the Guinness Collection of 750 antique, mechanical musical instruments and automata. 150 pieces from the collection are on display at the museum.
The museum has just created an illustrated catalog of its permanent exhibition titled Musical Machines and Living Dolls: The Murtogh D. Guinness Collection of Mechanical Musical Instruments and Automata. Written by Ellen M. Snyder-Grenier (former Curator of the Guinness Collection) this 144-page hardcover features 138 photographs and over 20 illustrations.
Evenly divided between automata and mechanical musical instruments, the book is a wealth of information on the history of both. It is a beautiful and well-written book, which offers a rich view of an extremely important collection. I recommend it.
You can purchase copies of Musical Machines and Living Dolls by phone (973-971-3737), or by filling out and mailing the form offered on Morris Museum web site.
Here is one of several automata to be offered in an upcoming auction, which will also feature an extensive collection of magic apparatus.
From the online description:
Levitation Automaton. Cheshire, Anatoly Zaya-Ruzo, 2010. A magician stands behind a couch on which his assistant rests. As music plays, the assistant levitates up above the couch and the conjurer passes a hoop over her floating body. Four movements in all. Modeled after a similar automaton crafted in 1860. Magician figure features a bisque (porcelain) face. Base measures 11 1/2 x 8 1/2". Overall height of 16". As new.
Potter & Potter conducts public auctions in Chicago, which are also carried live on the web. The sale featuring this another other pieces will be held on Sunday, May 22nd, 2011 at 10:00 am. The auctions and pre-sale exhibitions are held in thier gallery space at 3729 N. Ravenswood, Suite 116, Chicago, IL 60613.
Here is where you can learn more about this upcoming auction offered by Potter & Potter.
A brand new mechanical sculpture in wood and metal by Carlos Zapata. The piece will be a coin operated collecting box for donations from visitors to the Tudor House museum in Southampton, UK.
Another crazy and wonderful motorized-driven wall-mounted kinetic piece from Brett Dickins. It's a head-spinning assemblage of turning wood gears, linkages, and an exploding wooden frame. Awesome.
Last year I posted details of an auction featuring a rare automaton animating Davinci's painting The Last Supper. This very large automaton is attributed to Henry Phalibois and dates to around 1890 to 1920. At the time of that post, there was no video of the piece, but that has changed as you can see from the detailed video above.
The piece is going to auction once again in New Zealand on 2nd June 2011, this time at Webbs auction house. The seller very much hopes to find someone who will restore it fully and treasure it for the rare piece that it is. It may be the only one of its kind in the entire world!
The Spring issue of Scroll Saw Woodworking & Crafts Magazine contains complete patterns and instructions for making this wooden clock designed by the amazing Clayton Boyer. The magazine says the Genesis Clock is designed for first time clock builders. This is a great opportunity to get a Clayton Boyer design at less than the usual price!
Did you see the video of Dave Johnson's magnet machine the other day? He cleverly used magnetic spheres (one brand name is Buckyballs, but there are a bunch of different brands) to do all kinds of nifty moves within a machine. Eventually, I remembered posting about this marble-track toy: the Magnetix I-Coaster. It, too, uses magnetic balls to perform some unexpected maneuvers.
As you can see in the video, the magnetic aspect of the 10mm spheres comes into play at the "magnetic bridge" where the ball clings to a bar above a gap in the track. The ball also is able to roll on the outside face of a downward curve! Also, the Magnetix iCoaster uses the magnets to create an invisible elevator to raise the balls back to the top of the track. I'm not sure, but magnets may also be used for the landing area of the little jump that the ball performs.
When you look at the iCoaster and what Dave Johnson created, you start to get the sense that there are lot of cool things that could be done and the surface has just been scratched.
Here's where you can read a really complete description of the Magnetix iCoaster
An exhibit of Cabaret Mechanical Theatre's touring collection has just opened at the 'MuseumBoerhaave' in Leiden. Here are two videos showing various parts of the circus-themed show. What an amazing assortment of automata by so many esteemed artists!
Cabaret Mechanical Theatre's touring collection will be on display in Holland until the end of September, 2011.
Here is a fantastic new kinetic piece by Dave Johnson, which advances spherical rare earth magnets (AKA Buckyballs) around a course using a variety of creative techniques and mechanisms. At one point, he uses the magnets' ability to form a chain to wind them up a dowel. Also, be sure to check out the clever use of the large plastic drywall anchor!
From the YouTube description:
This machine manipulates small spherical rare earth magnets, slicing one at a time from the end of a long chain, moving it around a bit, then dropping it back to re-connect at the tail end of the chain.
It also demonstrates a little snippet of science called eddy currents. Watch how slowly the magnet falls through the aluminum tube compared to falling through air: the falling magnet generates an electrical current in the tube, and that current in turn generates a magnetic field that opposes the movement of the magnet, slowing it down dramatically.
I used a plastic drywall anchor for the main screw drive that pulls the chain of magnets through the machine. The 2 other driven axles -- the slicer and and the lifter -- are geared directly to the screw drive. Steven Garrison's gear cutting method was invaluable to make the gears operate smoothly. The lifter is based on a standard four bar linkage (a film advance mechanism) but was modified to dip very low before lifting back up and stroking its straight vertical line at the top.
Dave Johnson points out that these magnets are currently a popular toy, and can be purchased on the web or in stores -- usually in a set of 216 (for a 6x6x6 cube). There are many different brands: Zen Magnets, Buckyballs, nano dots, NeoCube, and more.
As you may recall, the multi-talented retired engineer, Roberto Lou Ma, has been kind enough to provide free plans for two different ramp-walking figures: the rhino and the robot. These are available only here on The Automata / Automaton Blog!
Regarding the robot: Sky Engineering Labs has made an interesting simulation model of the walking robot. I've posted it above. Their YouTube page offers a couple of engineering-related tutorials on MBDyn and MATLAB Graphics. Here is my original post with the free downloadable plans and instructions for making for the ramp-walking robot.
As for the rhino: Roberto Lou Ma, as now provided a PDF of the patterns so that they can be printed out out full scale. They are also available on the Ramp-walking Rhino page.
