The Grand Magician automaton by Maillardet answers your questions

Here is some wonderful footage of The Great Magician automaton held in the collections of the Musée international d'horlogerie (International Museum of Horology) in La Chaux-de-Fonds, Switzerland. The piece is attributed to Maillardet, but not Henri Maillardet who made the now famous drawing automaton housed at The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia. Rather, this one appears to have been made by one of his brothers, Jean-David Maillardet with the help of his son, Julien-Auguste and his brother Jacques-Rodolphe.

The magician is a soothsayer, who will answer certain questions contained on small plaques. The plates are inserted into a drawer and, after the appropriate amount of conjuring, the answer appears in a window in the top of the piece. It may not pass a Turing test, but it is a remarkable feat of engineering nevertheless. One of the two automata of this sort held by the museum answers the following questions:

1. A rare thing? (A friend)
2. What is too easily given? (A piece of advice)
3. What brings only illusory happiness (Money)
4. What is the greatest treasure? (Wisdom)
5. What does a girl of fifteen want? (To be sixteen)
6. The confidant of a newly married lady? (A Mirror)
7. A happy error? (Hope)
8. If no plate is put the drawer and the machine set in motion, a small devil appears!

You can learn a great deal more about this automaton from the book Automata: A Historical and Technological Study.

[ Thanks Thomas!]

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Wrist watches made almost exclusively form wood? Done.

So, I've posted recently about a nice wooden wrist watch. In the more distant past I've also posted about a pocket watch with a wooden mechanism. Taking this to the next logical step, here is a wrist watch with wooden wooden works. That's right, those tiny pivots, pinions, wheels, levers, and balance wheel are all made of wood. The only non-wood part are the metal springs needed to power the movement and cause the balance wheel to oscillate. Many of the parts are made from birch and other woods such as juniper and bamboo. Some of these watches will run for a full day and and are accurate to withing five minutes a day.

These remarkable creations are the work of Valerii Danevych -- a talented Ukrainian man with no formal watchmaking experience. Granted, this achievement required a certain genius, but it should still make each us question if that the limits we place on ourselves exist only in our minds.

Here is where you can see the full article, titled Carpenter carves functioning watches entirely from wood.

[ Thanks John! ]

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Five machines that changed the world: bow, waterwheel, trebuchet, escapement, and governor

In his book Ingenium, physicist Mark Denny examines five devices -- the bow and arrow, the waterwheel, the counterpoise siege engine, the pendulum clock anchor escapement, and the centrifugal governor. The author combines narrative, illustrations, and even equations to cover the history of each device. As a physicist, he is able to explain the physics behind each machine, how it was used, how it changed over time, and the impact they had on the world.

From the book description:

Consider the bow and arrow, which transformed warfare by allowing soldiers to attack their enemies at a safe distance. Or the waterwheel, which enabled Old World civilizations to grind grain, pump water, and power machines during a period of extreme labor shortages. Medieval warriors engaged in an early form of biological warfare by using the trebuchet to launch dead animals or plague-ridden corpses over enormous fortress walls. The pendulum clock forever enslaved modern humans to the clock by linking the accurate measure of time to the burdens of schedules, deadlines, promptness, and tardiness. And the centrifugal governor gave rise to an entire branch of modern engineering science: feedback control.

Here's where you can learn more about the book Ingenium: Five Machines That Changed the World

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Eye-changing mechanism makes this automaton very expressive

Here is another amazing automaton that came by way of master automaton maker, Thomas Kuntz. The last three posts were some of his recent contributions to The Automata / Automaton Group on Facebook. Check out the eye action on this automaton. Simply amazing! It adds so much to the expressiveness of the character.

[ Thanks to Thomas Kuntz! ]

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Pneumantic chirping birds automaton by the ancient Greeks

The design of this piece is usually attributed to Hero of Alexandria, though the web site from which this comes attributes it to another great inventor form antiquity, Philo of

About the owl and bird automaton:

For the operation of the automaton, water from a spring was driven inside the upper airtight container forcing the air to leave through a pipe. Because the pipe-flute led to water, the oscillating wavelength produced a chirp with notes of different frequency. Then when the water level exceeded the curved siphon of the container, it emptied through it to the intermediate container, diverting a yoke to the side. This forced the built-in rotating shaft supporting the owl to turn towards the birds that then stopped chirping. When the water level exceeded the axial siphon of the intermediate container, it emptied through to the lower container, diverting the yoke towards its counterweight, which caused the owl to turn away from the birds that then began to sing again, etc.

This is quite a beautiful reproduction!

See more great inventions on this site about ancient Greek technology.

[ Thanks again, Thomas!]

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Fantastic musical automaton clock of an elephant worth £1.4 million

Check out this ormolu musical automaton clock by Peter Torckler. The piece was part of an auction held at Sotheby's in July of 2012. This beautiful machine is dated to around 1780 and was intended for a market in China with whom London had developed an impressive trade relationship. The piece was estimated to be worth £1,000,000 to £2,000,000 prior to the auction and found a buyer right in the middle of the range at £1.4 million.

A bejeweled whirligig spins above the animal. Below that, a figure of the Greek god Atlas, holds up a rotating sphere of the heavens. The elephant figure sits on a rockwork base inset with the clock dial. The automaton depicts an Asian elephant whose trunk, eyes, ears, and tail all move in appropriate ways. Below that, a small animated scene depicts falling water, tiny windmills, and spinning waterwheels. The musical movement, which will play a choice of six tunes, is hidden within the lower section.

[ Thanks Thomas! ]

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Wiggly Mustache Portrait by Gary Schott features kinetic facial hair

Cabaret Mechanical Theatre is now offering the work of automaton artist Gary Schott. If you are unfamiliar with his work, check out this lovely video profile of Gary Schott that I posted some time ago.

The Wiggly Mustache Portrait is just plain fun. When you turn the crank, the man's mustache wiggles back and forth. The piece is made of wood, brass, plastic, paint, adhered and sealed image. It measures 9 inches x 4.5 inches x 6 inches.

Here is the page for the Wiggly Mustache Portrait by Gary Schott. There are only 5 of these, so get them while you can.

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Video profile of automaton sculptor Jacques Monestier

Check out this wonderful film which profiles automaton sculptor Jacques Monestier. I'm sorry I can't say more about it; my French just isn't that good. Trust me, you will enjoy the film! His demonstration with the mechanical hand is truly amazing.

[ Thanks Thomas! ]

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Under-the-hood video of Colin Neu's "First Flight" kinetic sculpture

Did you see the video featuring the amazing kinetic sculptures by Colin Neu? Here is an closer look at one of the pieces featured. This one is titled First Flight. That beefy spring-driven motor you see at the beginning came from an antique gramophone motor. The video shows that there is some extraordinary craftsmanship going on here at every level. I think this sculpture may be as beautiful on the inside as it is on the outside. Bravo!

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Super-small 12 cylinder engine may be the smallest in the world!

With close to six million views on YouTube, this video doesn't fall into the "undiscovered" category. Nevertheless, it falls into the crazy-amazing-miniature-machine category.

This incredibly small motor is the work of a Spanish engineer named Patelo. 1200 hours went into designing and fabricating one of the world's smallest V12 engines. The video shows the assembly process and culminates in the motor running on compressed air. This is some very fine miniature machining, indeed.

It's Monday; let this inspire you to make all that you can of the coming week. Enjoy!

[ Thanks John! ]

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A trio of zipper-mouthed film canister creatures by Nemo Gould

Check out this recent piece by artist Nemo Gould titled Zip Synch. The heads for the strange and endearing creatures are small zippered film canisters.

From Nemo Gould's web site:

The inspiration came from the little film canisters that form their heads. I had done this once before with the piece "Head Case #2". Recently I came across several more cases at a flea market and couldn’t resist making a chorus line of them.

In addition to the film canisters, the piece is made from sprockets, chain, gears, motor, LEDs, mirrored plastic, and wooden box.

See more kinetic sculpture by Nemo Gould on his web site.

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Jaquet Droz makes the world's first singing bird wrist watch!

Did you see the exquisite automaton wrist watch by Jaquet Droz I posted about back in December of 2012? If not, here is where you can check out the watch. The company has done it again as you can see from the video shown above of a different bird automaton watch. Called The Charming Bird, it is the world's first singing bird automata wristwatch.

Here is a short interview with Marc A. Hayek, President and CEO of Jaquet Droz. In the video, we see a new large automaton the company has built in order to promote some of the very small ones they are putting into watches.

Jaquet Droz is a name long associated with automata and it's nice to see the company continuing to honor this history.

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Astonishing and artful kinetic clocks created by Miki Eleta

Hope on over to A Parallel World to read a great post about the artful kinetic clocks created by Miki Eleta. Miki Eleta was born in 1950 in Visegrad (Bosnia and Herzegovin), but has lived in Switzerland since 1973. He started building kinetic art and clock building in 1996 and continues to this day. He only manufactures unique timepieces. As you might imagine, this is a very complex task. Words from the artist and clock-maker:

What a chance to take part in the manufacturing of a clock!

Writing down notes on a piece of paper, holding on to the ideas, approaching to each other reality and inspiration. Subordinating myself to the play of cogwheels and levers, producing all components myself, learning new techniques – unknown ways open, ideas flash through my mind.

I love this process and I like all the difficulties I have to cope with because they do not occur by chance. Manufacturing a clock means to me feeling life and adventure. I respect all that has been invented so far – but I do not respect the idea that nothing is unknown. Therefore I do not stop searching for surprises, new forms, unknown movements and presentations. The realization of imagination.

Clocks have entered my world of kinetic art and sounds and they remain there. All my works of art are unique and I do not accept any repetition, in no case, there is enough fantasy, inspiration, enthusiasm and motivation.

You can read more about the artist and see more amazing clocks on his web site.

[ Thanks Bill! ]

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The wooden mechanism secrets of master clockmaker John Harrison

If you've read the book Longitude, you know that John Harrison was the man who created a clock capable of telling very accurate time while on a ship at sea. To accomplish this very difficult task, he develop many innovations. The video shown here uses a replica long case clock (commonly called a "Grandfather clock") to show the innovative elements of the wooden clock movement. Most of these new features have to do with reducing friction, minimizing the effects of temperature and humidity, and reducing wear. Worth noting are the use of the grasshopper escapement, Lignum Vitae bearings, a novel pinion design in which the trundles rotate, and adding gear teeth to a circular blank to ensure that each tooth is as strong as possibe.

For more on John Harrison, check out Dava Sobel's book, Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time.

Better still perhaps is the one with pictures titled, The Illustrated Longitude: The True Story of a Lone Genius Who Solved the Greatest Scientific Problem of His Time

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Fritz, the open source robotic head, reaches $41,000 dollars in funding on Kickstarter!

Kerwin Lumpkins has a startup company that recently had a robotic head project on Kickstarter. As you will see in the video, Fritz is a robotic puppet head that you can control with an easy to use computer application. The advanced version has moving eyes, jaw, eyelids, eyebrows, and neck.

From the company web site:

Fritz is an animatronic puppet that is controlled by an Arduino microcontroller. Fritz was created to provide an inexpensive introduction into robotics that is both entertaining, creative and educational. With an open source directive, Fritz is accompanied by a PC application to provide you with an easy to use interface in customizing and interacting with the project mechanics.

The project is currently funded way over it's goal of $25K. In fact, they received over $41,000 in funding from 236 backers. The crowd has spoken and they want laser cut wooden robot heads! I love this crowd.

You can learn more about Fritz the robotic head on the Kickstarter page or on the www.xyzbot.com web site.

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