Two Methods for Making Pinwheels Patterns Pinwheels – Gears for the Masses Gears are very useful to the automata-maker, but they can be tricky to make depending on your knowledge, skills, tools, and patience. Enter pinwheels: gears almost anyone can make! In a previous installment of this column, we looked at a number of methods […]
Wooden Circles for Your Automata Projects – Dug’s Tips 2
Wooden Circles for Your Automata Projects So Many Circles! Circles are found in dozens of mechanisms including cams, eccentrics, cranks, pin wheels, collars, followers, and flywheels. Circles may also serve as the foundation for gear blanks, pulleys, or animated parts of an automaton. But how can you obtain this vital shape in wood? The caterpillar […]
Eight Lessons Learned from Making a Wooden Clock – Dug’s Tips 1
We are delighted to introduce the first of a new quarterly column by automata maker and enthusiast Dug North. The column will focus on automata construction techniques and assorted methods of creating motion. Dug will also highlight the works of various automata makers, (some you are sure to have heard of and some you probably […]
Tinkering with PIE
Over the past 10 years we have worked regularly with Mike Petrich and Karen Wilkinson from the Exploratorium, in San Francisco. Mike and Karen have enormous energy, and a unique capability for making things happen in their tinkering workshops. Some of our favourites have been the ‘Sound Automata’ workshops where participants build sound automata and […]