I sort of experimented with shooting this piece. I wanted to see what I could do with lighting, motion and editing. The piece – being a non-kinetic work – doesn’t really seem a good prospect for a movie, but I wanted to see what I could do with it. I may have to try this again with future static figures.
“Harvest” 2011 by Tom Haney from Tom Haney on Vimeo.
My latest installment of Dug’s Automata Tips, Techniques and Tricks has been published. While past articles have focused on construction methods such as how to make wooden circles or how to make a wooden head, this one takes a look at the power rotary tool, or “Dremel” as we often call it. I offer a number of tips ranging from safety to how to work with materials such as wood, metal, and glass. I also share tricks on getting the most from common accessories. There is a link to a chart that specifies which rotary tool bits work best at which speeds. There is also a link to an interactive bit-finder which helps you select the best tool for the job. I hope you enjoy the article!
Here is a link to Dug North’s article on 21 rotary tool tips and tricks for makers of all sorts. Here is where you can find previous installments of Dug’s Automata Tips, Techniques and Tricks.
Penguin II
Typewriter parts
Jeremy Mayer
I hope you enjoyed the preview of The Rocket Stop audio system. The harsh marine environment and rain has taken it’s tool over the past year, but the upgrades went realyl well, and the Stop is looking much better now. The new audio system is working (as of now), but is not quite as loud as I’d like it to be. Here are some quick photos and video I shot while doing the upgrades:
I made these because I got sick of the damage I was incurring to my hearing from using my headphones as protection in the shop.
-Stay Tuned
RGR will be on display at its Pier 14 location on the S.F. Embarcadero for one more year.
Last weekend we repaired, retouched, and repainted.
-Stay Tuned
Take a look at this amazing large-scale kinetic sculptures by Ben Trautman.
From the artist’s web site:
My work combines the languages of industrial architecture and organic forms using intuitive engineering and experimentation. Inspired by cities, bones, mechanics and the movement of living organisms, I build sculptures suggesting creatures that inhabit the crevices of industrial decay. I work with dual languages, mass and delicacy or solidity and agility. Architecture inspires and hosts my work, provides context and scale, mass to inhabit or solidity to erode.
With a studio located in Oakland, California, he has made mechanical sculptures for The Franklin Institute in Philadelphia and The Bay Area Discovery Museum in Sausalito, California.
See more kinetic sculptures by Ben Trautman on his web site.
YouTube user GrigorevViktor posted this video of a moving picture depicting a man in a mechanical flying contraption — something like one Leonardo Da Vinci might have designed. I love the floating motion of the man, the subtle shifts in his posture, and the use of moving background elements.
There isn’t much in this world that bugs me more than inconsideration and waste. I can link these two things to most of the obstacles that we face as a species and if you (the reader) and I ever meet, I will be happy to talk it through at length over a beer.
Here is an article about a group in Colorado that works against both.
-Stay Tuned
Here is a fascinating video featuring the kinetic art of Brett Dickins. The video shows the parts being added to the sculptures one-by-one. When the sculpture is complete, it is set in motion. It gives you a real appreciation for the complexity, ingenuity, and dedication involved in making these wall-mounted kinetic sculptures. The chorus of the background track is quite apropos.
See more kinetic sculpture by Brett Dickins on his YouTube channel.
This little machine will be installed in the head of the large cyclops-octopus-robot thing I’m working on. Its made from a truck wheel hub, a candle holder, the motor from a dollar bill intake machine, some LEDs, and a few other random parts.
“Above it All” and “Conganaut” leaving the nest. Sometimes the crating of a piece is nearly as challenging as making it in the first place.
My latest piece is about a man trying to pick a heart out of a tree. You could say he is looking for love, or something like, that but I will leave it up to your interpretations, (as I usually do).
I did a simple sketch for this back in the summer, and actually made the head in July, right before I started on the Boxcar Fair figures.
Click on the images for a better view.
The tree is fabricated out of branches I found on the banks of the Ohio River, near Cincinnati. The base is a piece of driftwood also found on the river, down near Evansville. All hearts were found at various antique shops. And I made the “picker” from a dowel and some wire I formed into the shape of a hand. I remember picking apples in my grandfather’s backyard when I was a kid. We used a very similar device, though it was not in the shape of a hand.
More pieces to come……….
I tend toward ambiguity in most of my work, that’s why I’m a bit surprised when a narrative emerges. In this case, the latest monster on the workbench, “Si” brings together a geneva made from an a plate printed with a map of New Hampshire, some numbers from a scale, a bit of Spanish and the usual assortment of odds and ends.
I’m still not quite sure what this is all about but I suddenly like it (after a bit of struggle!)
I’ve been working on a simple little machine to cause an eyeball to track back and forth. So far so good. LED light effects coming up next.
I’ve been a busy bee lately! One commission was for a pair of Bedside Reading lamps. I made a third to work through my concept. The client requested dimmable LED bulbs on this and a previous project. They work great! The Base of the lamps are from vintage film projectors and include the utility of the original drawer compartment. The brass, ball shaped shade pivots on two axis. The arms are made of Carbon Fiber and Phenolic with glass marbles. The arm is adjustable by the knob on the base. See more, including video here.
I had a group show opening at a new space Opiate Gallery in old town Fort Collins, Co. Dec. 2nd
I also completed a clock commission last week. I used glass stopcocks to mark the hours and a hemispherical mirror for the body. The clock is 10″ diameter.
With the success of HUGO, automata have gotten a huge amount of exposure in recent weeks. But, as of February of 2012, HUGO won’t be the only film showing automata! Check out this creepy trailer for The Woman in Black starring Daniel Radcliffe of Harry Potter fame. Like several of the automata seen in HUGO, the automata in the preview are also from the collections of our friends at The House of Automata who served as consultants for HUGO.
A quick sketch of a piece I’m about to do.
This mechanism causes the head of my new “octo-thing” to rock back and forth. A good amount of energy went into the mattress spring suspension joints for each tentacle. At this stage though the machine is too smooth to make use of the springs. I may have to re-work things to get better results.
You’ve probably seen them: the bartender toy that shakes a drink, pours it, lifts it as if drinkings, smack his lips, turn red, then blows smoke out of his ears. I have one that I plan to fix. My question is this: how is that smoke produced? The end of the video shows the mechanism with wires leading into it. This suggests that heat from the wires burns a little something. But these toys have been around since the 60s and many still work. Nobody seems to recall adding anything to make the smoke work, so it has been there since the toy was made. What on earth could last so long? Is it oil or wax perhaps? I’d like to know! Here is what the assembled toy looks like:
[ Thanks Aaron! ]
It’s all too brief, but check out the lovely motion of this wooden mechanical bird. The bird is set in motion by pulling a string below (not shown). The YouTube description says it was made by Hans Happ (1899-1992), a German painter and creator of mechanical art toys.
Here is a beautifully made flying bird mobile made by Kenji Hayami. The sculpture depicts a white crane with a red crest in flight. The piece uses nice woods, an adjustable counter-balance system, and clever magnetic hinges. I wish I could see it in motion. I bet it is beautiful.
Here is the page with more info on the white crane wooden bird mobile.
I recently started a private commission for two architectural security grills. These will protect a set of rectangular windows that flank a fireplace in the client’s living room. Since the windows face out to a shallow passage on the side of the house with little visibility, the client requested that the grills be designed as an interior element.
The design process ebbed and flowed a bit beginning with plant-like forms and evolving into scroll patterns that we are both happy with. As luck would have it I found several scroll jigs in the back corner of the blacksmithing shop at the Crucible where I am building these.
I am about 1/4 through the process and hope to be ready to install by the the year’s end.
-Stay Tuned
I had heard of watchmaker George Daniels, mostly because I have been eyeing a certain book on Amazon for several months. The description and artwork in his book Watchmaking caught my attention right away. I did not know until recently how accomplished the author was as a watchmaker. Sadly, this genius passed away on October 21st at the age of 85. The facts within an obituary published by The Economist have left me stunned.
Daniels not only taught himself horology, but also every skill needed to produce a watch entirely on his own. He made the screws, springs, gears, hands and dials. He also made many of the tools used to make these things! In his 42 years of work, he created 37 unique watches and invented his own escapements. Here is video of his revolutionary co-axial escapement.
His obsession with precision led to the development of incredibly — and entirely mechanical — new watch mechanisms. This was no ordinary man, but rather the greatest watchmaker of our time.
Here is a link to the obituary for George Daniels published by The Economist.
[ Thanks Pete! ]
The Bike Bridge – Part 1 from ONE ANT RED on Vimeo.
The Crucible and BRAF hosted a project last summer which paired a collection of 12 year old girls from all over Oakland with Micheal Christian, a local artist. They collaborated on the bike bridge, made almost entirely from bikes that were abandoned at burning man.
-Stay Tuned
This is a combined haul from the flea market, scrap yard, etc. I’m on a junk binge.
If you have a maker or aspiring maker in your life and they don’t own this book, this should be your holiday gift to them. You won’t just be giving them a book, but a fundamental education in machines and fabrication techniques that they will be able to use for the rest of their life. No, that’s not an exaggeration.
In Making Things Move, Dustyn Roberts explains mechanical design principles and their applications in non-technical terms, using examples and a dozen topic-focused projects.
Some of the topics covered:
This is an outstanding book with a ton of great information presented in a very accessible way. I believe it to be a classic-in-its-own time for makers. I wish I had owned it years ago!
Here is where you can order the book Making Things Move DIY Mechanisms for Inventors, Hobbyists, and Artists.
About 100 cabinet knobs and 2 rocking chairs generously gave their lives to the cause of making tentacles for my new piece. It’s been a tedious process that I hope to wrap up today.
Dick George Creatives provide creative manufacturing solutions for the film, television and the entertainment Industry. They were recently tasked with creating the automaton for Martin Scorsese film Hugo. They were not to build a mere prop; the automaton had to be able actually draw the famous man-in-the-moon image from early film by Georges Méliès. They ended up making a total of 15 automata, two of which could draw the image in real time without the use of CGI. They succeed in the task, using a very different solution than Maillardet’s drawing automaton — the automaton that inspired author Brian Selznick.
See more models, prototypes, film and television sets at the Dick George Creatives web site.
Christmas: The Pre-Reindeer EraOver the years, I have made two automata featuring Santa Claus. Why? Well, he’s a great royalty-free character and one that seems tolerant to being modified. The first one I made (shown above) is titled Christmas: The Pre-reindeer Era. It depicts Santa in those early years before he could make the down-payment on that expensive sleigh with all those reindeer.
The second one I made was for a holiday issue of a woodworking magazine. Yup, you can get plans to build this Exercising Santa. The automaton depicts Santa building his upper body strength in preparation for the big night. This one is called Training for Christmas:
Training for ChristmasHere’s a new addition to the genre, but I didn’t design this one. The Dancing Santa was created by Shawn Cipa — an award-winning Santa Carver. He made this neat Santa automaton for this year’s holiday edition of Woodcarving Illustrated magazine.
Here is a link to Woodcarving Illustrated’s Santa Automaton page.
Check out this delightful automaton — one of several new pieces by Carlos Zapata — entitled Flying Love 2011. The carved characters and the winged heart make for a charming automaton.
You can see more new automata by Carlos Zapata on his blog.
The Hollywood Movie Costumes and Props blog has a great post featuring a number of photographs from an exhibit of items used in the movie HUGO. Among the items shown are the outfits the actors wore and one of the automata created for the film (shown above).
You can also see some of the props from the movie in person! If you can make it to Scotland, there is a HUGO exhibition now open at The House of Automata, where you can see props used in the film and gain insight into the making of the film from people involved. A very rare opportunity!
Part clock, part sculpture, The Time Machine is a mechanical clock that moves a set of chrome balls every sixty seconds. There is a track of accumulated balls to indicate the hour of the day and another two to indicate the minutes. There is a even a second hand on top. The clock has been around longer than you might think and was sold as “The Electric Wonder Ball Clock”. Here is a nice video review of the clock
It comes with a fitted acrylic display case that keeps the dust out of the mechanism and makes it look really sleek and futuristic. This modern version of an ancient method of keeping time is a great conversation piece, fun for kids and adults. Please note: because of the clacking of the chrome balls this isn’t a clock you’ll want to put in a library — but that’s true of most mechanical clocks!
Here’s the link for more info on the Time Machine Tabletop Clock
See it here. It’s been months in the making and finally it has been completed, (and the credits added to the end).
We shot the 2 1/2 minute video in one continuous take. There were SO many variables during shooting, that even the day before I wasn’t sure it was even possible. The biggest problem was the High-Diver. She kept getting tangled. The solution was to eliminate 4 of her 8 strings. This limited her ability to move but we had no choice. Marionettes don’t do well when you turn them upside down. And she really made this fact obvious. Also, she, and the other 2 string puppets, had 9 feet of string between them and the operator. This makes them pretty difficult to operate because much of it is done by feel. My hat’s off to our puppeteers for sticking in there and getting the job done! Bravo!
Now on to the next project……….
See it here. It’s been months in the making and finally it has been completed, (and the credits added to the end).
We shot the 2 1/2 minute video in one continuous take. There were SO many variables during shooting, that even the day before I wasn’t sure it was even possible. The biggest problem was the High-Diver. She kept getting tangled. The solution was to eliminate 4 of her 8 strings. This limited her ability to move but we had no choice. Marionettes don’t do well when you turn them upside down. And she really made this fact obvious. Also, she, and the other 2 string puppets, had 9 feet of string between them and the operator. This makes them pretty difficult to operate because much of it is done by feel. My hat’s off to our puppeteers for sticking in there and getting the job done! Bravo!
Now on to the next project……….
Making some progress on my latest octo-thingy. Had to cut down the height of each radio cabinet about 20% to get the proportions right. I think it looks much better now.
With December almost here ( and it still feels like summer in New England ) we have some beautiful shots of my most recent work thanks to photographer Elizabeth Neville. All of these pieces can be seen, starting tommorow at Aqua Art 11 in Miami. I’ll have some photos from the show later this week.
The long-awaited short film featuring the artwork of automata artist Tom Haney is finally here! Titled Boxcar Fair, the story follows a wandering explorer who discovers a magical fair in the desert. The film features the music of the band Little Tybee. Remarkably, the entire thing was shot in one take — no cuts, no edits!
About the film
Directed By: Brock Scott and Tom Haney
Director of Photography: Andrew Kornylak
Original Score, “Boxcar Fair”, Arranged, Performed, and Recorded by: Little Tybee, Mixed by: Pat Brooks
Puppeteers: Raymond Carr, Amy Rush, Mauree Culberson, Lee Bryan
Label: Paper Garden Records
Made in: Atlanta, GA
See more work by Tom Haney on his web site.
I just got some photos of the Blooom fair in Cologne from the folks at Strychnin Gallery. It looks like it was a terrific show, I’m sorry I wasn’t able to be there myself.
http://strychningallery.wordpress.com/2011/10/31/update-from-art-fair-blooom-in-cologne/
Listening to Neil deGrasse Tyson and makes me want to relive my education and become a scientist.
-Stay Tuned
Here is a nice article on the man behind the machine in the recently released movie, Hugo. The film features a drawing automaton and this article goes into some detail about George’s inspirations for the figures that were used in the film.
From the Los Angeles Times article:
An automaton is a mechanical human being or animal that historically worked via clockwork mechanisms because it predated electricity and the electric motor. They were used by wealthy people as entertainment pieces that were brought out at functions, parties and gatherings. Ours had to appear to be gears that meshed together and clockwork drives driven by springs, although in actual fact there were 28 separate drive mechanisms and servo systems within the body just to perform all the functions.
He goes on to explain how they got the automaton to actually draw!
Here’s a link to the article on the prop maker who created the automaton for the movie Hugo.
[ Thanks Aaron! ]
Earth | Time Lapse View from Space, Fly Over | NASA, ISS from Michael König on Vimeo.
So, I posted this video a few weeks ago and I have been thinking a lot about it since. The initial beauty of the visuals during the fly over of the I.S.S. kept me preoccupied for a few days but then I started to think more seriously about what I was seeing. As the station orbits the Earth you can see many cities lit up in the dark. The networks of light bulbs, cables, towers, relay stations and power plants are linked at certain points and spread to cover a significant portion of the Earth. This creates the illusion of a circuit board and makes me think that we have laid a robotic layer over the surface of our planet.
When I think about the infrastructure involved in creating this, I can’t help but be awestruck by the quantities of materials needed for its construction. How many feet of wire stretches throughout this system? How many lbs of glass have been formed into the various bulbs? How many other systems depend on the shape of this? Most of all I think about the wattage required to light each individual bulb in this collective illumination. I think about adding all these numbers up and what that sum total might be. What does that number even look like? What are we consuming in order to produce this energy and at what cost does it come?
I am not suggesting that this is necessarily a bad situation; it is just a staggering experience for me to think about the blazing trail of human presence on the planet and the quantities of resources that it takes to enable us to live the lives that we do.
-Stay Tuned
The Nautilus submarine from Oakland North on Vimeo.
Oakland North published a nice article about the latest project from my collaborative group - 5 Ton Crane today.
-Stay Tuned
Who said that saving can’t be fun? This mechanical piggy bank features a dog that seems to gobble up your coins. This is a clever use of a simple mechanism being used to produce a lot of convincing motion.
Here’s where you see a bunch of pictures and/or order your own Barkly the Banker Piggy Bank.
If Barkley isn’t quite your style, you might like of these animated mechanical banks:
No batteries? No problem! A company called Kikkerland offers a slew of interesting wind-up toys like the one shown here called Skidum. Like all of the Kikkerland wind-ups, it is part machine, part insect, part alien. Here’s a gallery of some of the other cool spring-powered mechanical creatures in this series:
Here’s a link to a bunch of Kikkerland wind-ups.
My friend and collaborator Sudhu Twari reverse engineered a commercial version of an electronic bow (Ebow) for a commission in 2010. He and I bought parts in bulk and spent a few days prototyping these instruments in his basement. Several months later I decided to recycle the idea for my MFA installation. I refined the design and built 9 more, each including a different sized bass or guitar string that were tuned to vibrate at different harmonics. This was my first real attempt to use sound as an art medium.
These instruments are the second generation of the work we have done with vibrating strings and are comprised entirely from hand-fabricated parts (except the tuning machines). The whole project took about two months to complete.
The boards I used for these are reclaimed (actual) 2x4s that were salvaged from some local architectural renovation. They are old growth, douglas fir with very small and numerous rings of growth. I counted over 100 in several of them. I really enjoy knowing that the sounds being emitted from these strings are passing through the layers of the wood which, of course, represent the number of years the tree was alive. This adds layers of meaning to the sound that is resonating through, and being amplified by, the boards.
Turn your speakers up to really hear the different vibrations.
The Engino building system features multi-faceted rods and connectors that allow connections on up to 6 sides simultaneously. The rods permit both dense or open construction technicques, allowing you to build simple or complex models quickly with a smaller number of different components.
More on the Engino Build 50 Models Set
50 Models Engineering Set is a comprehensive set for creating impressive, huge structures such as a tower, a suspension bridge and a truss bridge. It covers the “play-park” theme by containing instructions for a motorized ferris wheel, a carousel and a windmill. The subject of Levers is also covered with the two fully functional weight-scales and the flying machines featured include a jet plane, a helicopter and a bi-plane! The set includes the engino 3 volt geared motor and will help children use their creativity and enginuity to power up either the featured models or their own. Printed instructions are included for 12 models while the others can be dowloaded from the engino´s website.
Here is where you can get the Engino 50 Models Engineering Set.
For those of you who may not have seen it, here’s the online version of the article I wrote for MAKE Magazine a few years ago. The article shows you the steps I used to construct my surprise top hat. When a hidden brake lever is squeezed, a monster pops out of the top of the hat.
When I wrote the article, I used a rubber finger puppet. I have recently replaced this with a wooden monster of my design. The new monster has articulated arms which really adds to the sense that the creature is alive and actively pushing the top of the hat open. I gave him a surly look — as if he is angered by his noisy neighbors. That would be you. Here is what the updated hat looks like:
Here is where you can see how I made the surprise top hat project, complete with materials list, step-by-step instructions, and photographs of the construction. Enjoy!
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