Wooden Automata

I was inspired by an artist on Instagram named Amedeo Capelli who creates automatas to do this project.

Before beginning, I wanted to practice creating one, so I sketched out what I would need to make it work and then make a model out of wooden skewers and a box to get a feel for the design and how everything would interact. This project has to be the most ambitious thing I have made, due to the fact that it has gears and is designed to move.

My first step was piecing together the box. I measured the cardboard box I had used as a mockup for my dimensions and cut a large piece of wood to scale. Instead of drilling holes, I used a nailgun and woodglue to piece it together. In the top, I drilled a hole and set a small copper tube in, so that the 1/8th size dollrod would have room to move up and down. Inside of the box, using a gear I made out of a bigger wooden dollrod, I glued it to the bottom of the smaller one. I glued itself to the copper tube and I had to reglue it and be careful to make sure it did not attach itself. Once that was done, I moved on to the handle.

For the handle mechanism, I drilled holes in both sides of the box at the same spot. Using the same 1/8th dollrod, I put another wooden gear, this time in an oval shape on the rod, along with a piece of cork. Once inserted, on the end I put a longer piece of wood to act as a crank and then I screwed a handle in, securing it with woodglue.

Instead of creating a wooden figure to go on top, while the box and crank were drying, I created a needle felted frog to be placed on top. His limbs would be looser, allowing him to wiggle more as the mechanism went up and down.