This Automaton Blows Bubbles at the Push of a Button

Robotics
This Automaton Blows Bubbles at the Push of a Button

Eric Hart had a deceptively simple sounding project pop into his lap.

We built a doll that moves its arms, dips a wand into soap, and brings it to her mouth to blow bubbles. It was for a theater production, so one of the challenges was for it to run smoothly every night with just a push of a button. It was particularly difficult to make the bubbles behave consistently. If I were to build one again, I would start by solidifying the mechanical parts first and then crafting the visual portion around it; in this case, we built the doll parts first and then had to make the mechanics fit that, which limited our options as we discovered problems with the design.

As you can see, he managed to pull it off nicely.

YouTube player

His blog has the full build details and many pictures of the process.

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I get ridiculously excited seeing people make things. I just want to revel in the creativity I see in makers. My favorite thing in the world is sharing a maker's story. find me at CalebKraft.com

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