Amazingly lifelike paper chameleon automaton powered by a small music box

Check out this very cleverly-constructed and lifelike chameleon automaton. The chameleon is about 8cm long and illuminated from within. After winding a key on the back, the creature comes to life, slowly shifting its weight on the branch and moving its eye around.

The automaton is cleverly-built in many respects. First, the paper figure is just amazing. Next, the entire thing is a reflection. This allows the actual model to be oriented horizontally, providing some design advantage. Also, the linkage that makes the eye move is magnetism!

The chameleon was made by papercraft artist Johan Scherft, who specializes in the design paper models of animals and mostly birds. Here is where you can see more artwork by Johan Scherft.

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If you can take it apart -- if you can understand it -- you can make it better

This video tells the story of Mark Lesek, managing director of Dynamic Welding and Engineering in Tasmania. In December of 2003, Lesek lost his right arm in a car accident. This left him in need of an artificial arm. The difficulties associated with getting an artificial arm were monumental on every front -- medical, political, financial and technical. A man with great determination and considerable mechanical knowledge, Lesek decided to make his own arm based on historical designs. His patent searches revealed some incredible designs. To these he added his own innovations and together these have led to advancements that will be of benefit to millions.

His statement at the end of the video are words to live by:

It doesn't matter if it's a bike, or an arm, or your life: if you can take it apart, if you can understand it, you can make it better.

You can follow Mark Lesek on Google+, learn more of his story, and stay up to date with what he is up to.

Think prosthetic limbs are off-topic for this blog? Think again. All of the same mechanical components that we marvel over in automata and robots maybe be found in some of the sophisticated artificial limbs. There is a long history of automaton-makers working on and developing prosthetic devices. One good example is Jean Frédéric Leschot. Leschot, the adopted son of Pierre Jaquet-Droz, assisted in the construction of the three masterpiece automata known as The Writer, The Musician, and The Draftsman. Later in his career, he also made artificial limbs using the knowledge he had obtained from making complex life-size automata.

[ Thanks Joseph! ]

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Exploration of The Uncanny as it relates to automata and robots

The Uncanny - the subject of an e-zine issue of the Pea Green Boat magazine, features an interview with The House of Automata and an unpretentious exploration of what The Uncanny is all about.

For some background on the concept of The Uncanny, let's turn to Wikipedia:

The Uncanny (Ger. Das Unheimliche - "the opposite of what is familiar") is a Freudian concept of an instance where something can be familiar, yet foreign at the same time, resulting in a feeling of it being uncomfortably strange or uncomfortably familiar.

Because the uncanny is familiar, yet strange, it often creates cognitive dissonance within the experiencing subject due to the paradoxical nature of being attracted to, yet repulsed by an object at the same time. This cognitive dissonance often leads to an outright rejection of the object, as one would rather reject than rationalize.

Here is where you can download the Pea Green Boat issue exploring The Uncanny as a pdf.

[ Thanks Michael! ]

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