The Thingiverse Cube Gears Phenomenon

This video of Thingiverse user dougc314’s motorized cube gears caught my attention, this morning, on one of my co-workers’ blogs. It’s a modification of user emmett’s much-copied screwless cube gears which replaces one of the corner gears with a motorized pedestal that constantly drives the geartrain, endlessly folding and unfolding the shape.

Screwless cube gears, in turn, is emmett’s second prototype of the cube gears design (the first one used screws for assembly), for which he cites Greg Frost’s 2010 Broken Heart as inspiration. The Broken Heart, finally, was inspired by the kinetic papercraft sculpture of Haruki Nakamura, which we blogged about back in 2008. [via nerdstink]