Although the “look” of this dancing-girl automaton by English toymaker Ron Fuller is not personally to my taste, I could not resist the fact that it is powered by a stream of falling sand, which is a trick I’ve never seen before. Thanks to YouTuber greninmotion for the video. [via The Automata / Automaton Blog]
10 thoughts on “Dancing automaton powered by falling sand”
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Is there a link somewhere that shows the mechanism I am missing? It mentions it uses falling sand but doesn’t show it. So it’s a trick you still haven’t ‘seen’ :)
I thought at first the automaton was playing the sound too but is is just on the video right?
I was wondering the exact same thing. I always like to draw the mechanics involved in such strange contraptions in my notebook.
I found a video of a similar sand toy (by Ron Fuller) here. Along with a video of the mechanics: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmL9YWq85No
I suspect the mechanism uses some sort of waterwheel, but perhaps it’s more clever than that…
@jeff-o:
You and Pocket-Sized are right on the mark. This technique of using a hopper full of sand to power a water-wheel-like device has been used in automata for hundreds of years. Sometimes the sand it caught in a tray so it can be easily fed back into the hopper without the need to turn it over to reload. I once had the pleasure of operating an automaton from the 1700s that used this principle.
@Simon:
Right, the music was added to the video. This automaton doesn’t have any musical element built in.
Best,
-Dug North
I thought I posted this yesterday but it didn’t show up. I found this about one of the old automatons someone found and restored. It is indeed a little paddle wheel type thing.
http://ladysrepositorymuseum.blogspot.com/2009/12/wonderful-1850-sand-toy-diamond-in.html