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When I built the lever mechanism, the sound felt very familiar. Took me a minute to realize it reminded me of the sound of a record player’s needle when the album has finished but the turntable keeps turning.

The design here is clunky, as the record (which is attached to the disc)has to pass between the lever and the record player arm (which are attached to each other). On to the crank slider. :) - ATGW participant October 2024

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I would also like to make the waves movable – maybe in different layers of waves. But somehow I think the subject (drowning) is too serious to make something funny out of it. That's why I'm thinking about a different motif with waves. - ATGW participant October 2024

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- ATGW participant October 2024

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Tried weighting the beer and biscuit with washers..... The pivots still a bit sticky and pin just bodged through the paper. Do like the ease of trying different layouts for the mech very quickly. - ATGW participant October 2024

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Haven't got any idea yet. Just put every thing to see how it works together.

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I love work songs and wanted to make something that approximated the motions of a group of women waulking (fulling) tweed, which is accompanied by waulking songs. An example can be found at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QeSrkZfpAjc, which is what I based the drawing on. This is the first iteration, which only captures the back-and-forth movement (and even that poorly). Next would be refining the arm movements and adding the cloth, but that's for another time.

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It takes a bit of practice, patience and manual dexterity with the small tools. But then it's fun.

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Tiny Art Director stated she’d like this to be a dinner table covered in plates with her at the top choosing between them. The agreement was she’d help, she drew her own face, 5 green lines, and then wandered off 😂😂
In retrospect, I’d have spaced the plates out so it was one plate per tick of the ratchet. Also, by the end of the tiny food I was phoning it in a bit — not sure what those yellow oblongs are supposed to be.

My ratchet keeps getting stuck (as you can see) and I’m not entirely sure why. No way that it could be lower, but maybe it should be further away..??

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Here is the linkage I made yesterday. I added stickers and a leaf for decoration and to understand the movement a bit more. I like how it moves slightly differently depending on which direction you turn the handle. Max

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I fussed with attaching the fish at the bar 2 & 3 pivot point. Because that pivot point rotates, I needed to counterweight the back end of the fish to keep it from pivoting too. Looking forward to seeing if the bell crank movement is more lateral as with Lou Lou's toothbrushing.

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https://cabaret.co.uk/automata-tinkering-kit/

This page has a series of videos showcasing the mechanisms you make with the tinkering kit. These are a useful addition to the booklet.

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This kit has been in development since 2020, the prototypes were used and improved during our online Automata Tinkering Global Workshops. It is now for sale here.

Below are videos demonstrating some of the mechanisms you can make with the kit.

The pegboard idea came from The Exploratorium's Tinkering Studio as a design intended for use with Lego. We started this, mostly wood, non-Lego version by trying the 3-bar linkage from our book. See pages 70-71 of the second edition (or 73-74 of 1st). The yellow point is approximating a straight line and the blue point is tracing a rough ellipse.

This is a crank-slider mechanism. You can try different wheels to change the amount of throw.

Here we are demonstrating different cam shapes. The red line is an approximation of the path of the black dot which was made by motion tracking a point near the right-hand end of the top linkage. The idea being to give an indication of the differences over time, as opposed to the easier to see, up and down movement of the cam follower.

Next up is a bell crank. This linkage turns a circular motion into a straight line motion.

From continuous motion to intermittent motion using a ratchet. The bell crank from the previous video is converting the up and down motion into a side to side movement that pushes the ratchet around. There isn't really any backlash on the ratchet but if there was the pawl / detent at the bottom would stop that movement. We've used an elastic band to keep it pressed against the ratchet. Dealing with the fixed spacing of the pivot points of the pegboard meant that this took a bit of trial and error to get working.

This is our first cardboard design to try out the top platform piece. Also introducing gearing with pulleys and a rubber band.

The Automata Tinkering Kit comes with two pulleys but you'll need to assemble them yourself. The video above shows how to do it.

The start of the video will help you identify the parts; two outer and one inner piece for each of the two pulleys. Check the drying time on your glue. They should be ok to use after an hour or two but preferably leave them to dry overnight.

Using too much glue will make them more likely to slip out of alignment while drying as well as giving you more to clean up.

More Making

For more information on the book shown in the videos above see our Cabaret Mechanical Movement page. We also have a video to purchase (stream or download) on Vimeo called How To Make Automata.

To get more updates on the Automata Tinkering Kit, you can follow us on Instagram or sign up to our new mailing list. When the kit is available it will be for sale here.

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Automata Tinkering Kit - Cabaret Mechanical Theatre

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This kit has been in development since 2020, the prototypes were used and improved during our online Automata Tinkering Global Workshops. It is now for sale here. Below are videos demonstrating some of the mechanisms you can make with the kit. The pegboard idea came from The Exploratorium's Tinkering Studio as a design intended for [...]

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Just a wee garden dance, put together with brass fasteners (aka brads)!

- Jake

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You can purchase the Automata Tinkering Kit here: https://cabaret.co.uk/product/automata_tinkering-kit/

To add your projects to this page press the round button with a cross in the right hand corner of this page. Or email a video to max at cabaret.co.uk