Here, automata guru Dug North rounds up four expedient methods for improvising a worm drive given an on-hand spur gear. Digging through our archives also reveals this interesting method for coming at the problem from the other direction, i.e. improvising a spur gear for an on-hand worm!
This one, called “Galia,” is just one of twenty-two beautiful kinetic sculptures, most of which are zoomorphic, featured in Bend, Oregon artist Chris Cole’s online portfolio. Each has a well-produced video showcasing its movements, and they’re all available in Chris’s YouTube channel, to which I am subscribing right now.
I believe Los Angeles artist Jeff Cook’s medium is correctly described as marquetry (“the art and craft of applying pieces of veneer to a structure to form decorative patterns, designs or pictures”) rather than parquetry (“very similar in technique to marquetry: in parquetry the pieces of veneer are of simple repeating geometric shapes, forming tiling patterns”). But it’s an interesting question…
This work from Korean Kyoung-bae Na, aka edulyoung, would be impressive as a static Lego model. As a flapping-wings automaton, it is, I daresay, magnificent. Kyoung-bae Na has a BrickLink storefront as Studio Amida, but the Pegasus Automaton is not listed there as of this writing.
That’s a very lucky lad grinning at you in the beginning of this video from his dad, Instructables user Steve Moseley, who designed, built and installed this elaborate marble run around the ceiling of his room.
It’s a full-size chair version of one of those little wooden toys with segmented legs that collapses when you release the internal tension. I’ve heard them called “swoon toys.” This furniture-scale version called Lazy Chair, by UK designers Fresh West, stands back up rather more slowly than the toys; it takes about 45 seconds in the video above. There’s also a click-to-collapse Flash version at the designer’s website. [via NOTCOT]
For a limited time, Cabaret Mechanical Theatre is offering a free download of an eighteen page booklet by famed automata-maker Paul Spooner. This is a great resource for the mechanically-curious and must have for automata-makers.
