Wall-mounted wooden marble machine with weight-driven escapement

Derek Hugger wrote in to say that he has spent the past few months designing a fully mechanical marble machine. Titled Kinestrata, the assembly is driven by a 2 1/2 pound weight via the classic Graham Escapement -- named for George Graham (1673-1751)an English clockmaker and inventor who is thought to have created it around 1715.

Kinestrata measures 11 x 17 x 5 inches and contains some 386 parts. The balls roll down 4 unique tracks and are lifted back to the top of the machine by 3 geared lifter rings. Hugger says that it took roughly 400 hours to design and build! Plans should be available for it in the next month or two. We'll keep you posted!

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With One You Get Birthday Cake - kinetic sculpture by Gina Kamentsky

Here is another delightful hand-cranked contraption in the mechanical series that artist Gina calls Mechanical Confections.

As ususal, there is a satisfying assortment of mechanical components: a periodically engaging set of bevel gears; a ball bearing on a shifting incline plane; a Geneva wheel; a pair of offset cams causing two followers to toggle up and down; a chiming bell; and, of course, a spinning wooden block with various items printed on its faces -- one of which shows a birthday cake.

See more kinetic sculptures by Gina Kamentsky on her web site.

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Mechanical figure strikes a bell with both hands

Another mechanical delight from the mind of Osamu Kanda. This mechanical figure strikes the small bell with either hand when a string is pulled. I'm not sure if this is the final piece or a stage of something in progress. Either way, it's a very clever use of a single string to cause the figure to turn at the waist and extend both arm and elbow. That's a lot of motion for the pull of a single string!

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Instrument playing bear automaton from Austria

Here is a vintage automaton bear that knows how to rock. Apparently, the bear is is original, but is missing whatever instrument it originally played. The bells -- taken from another antique toy -- were added later. The bear's maker and original instrument remain a mystery to the current sellers.

From the bear's description on ebay:

We are guessing he was made in the latter part of the 19th or very early part of the 20th century. The bear did not have an instrument when it came to us, only the metal drum sticks in his hands and a hole in the base where an instrument would have been mounted. Considering that he is holding metal drum sticks, whatever he was originally pounding on would have to have been metal or very durable at the least. After doing exhaustive research to find another like him and coming up empty, we chose to give him a set of antique nickel plated bells from an early push toy and mounted them to an appropriately sized tree stump...

Here is where you can see a bunch of photographs of this Instrument playing bear automaton made in Austria.

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SpooMonkey automaton by Pascale Michalski

Take a simple mechanism, some ceramic-like sculpting compound, and brilliant execution and what do you get? The SpooMonkey automaton shown here by artist Pascale Michalski. I love it!

From the Cabaret Mechanical Theatre site:

The first edition of automata from Pascale Michalski. SpooMonkey, which is short for “Spooky Monkey”, has been trapped in his cage for an eternity. His only amusement is making his bells tintinnabulate repeatedly. His haggard body tries to break out, but fails at it miserably again and again...

Here's the full page about the SpooMonkey automaton.

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