Collaborate Disseminate
With many words which are commonly used in everyday vocabulary, we are certain that we have a solid grasp of what they do and do not mean, but is this …read more Continue reading Robot: You Keep Using That Word But It Doesn’t Mean What You Think It Means
It’s easier than ever to build your own robot, but humans have been building automatons since before anyone had even thought of electronics. One beautiful example is the Silver Swan, …read more Continue reading Restoring the Silver Swan Automaton
Who was [Leonardo Torres Quevedo]? Not exactly a household name, but as [IEEE Spectrum] points out, he invented a chess automaton in 1920 that would foreshadow the next century’s obsession …read more Continue reading The Chess Computer from 1912
When one thinks of art, a birdbath may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, there is no denying that the La Fontaine aux Oiseaux (The Bird …read more Continue reading The Most Ornate Birdbath You’ve Ever Seen
“What’s the weather going to be like today?” is a question that’s near-permanently on the mind of those living in places like Britain, where brilliant sunshine can follow thick clouds, …read more Continue reading 3D Printed Mechanical Contraption Shows Live Weather Forecast
The art of building purely mechanical automatons has dramatically declined with the arrival of electronics over the past century, but there are still a few craftsmen who keep the art …read more Continue reading The Incredible Mechanical Artistry Of François Junod
Seven-segment displays have been around for a long time, and there is a seemingly endless number of ways to build them. The latest of is a mechanical seven-segment from a …read more Continue reading Mechanical 7-Segment Display Uses a Single Motor
Join us on Wednesday, May 20 at noon Pacific for the Animatronics Hack Chat with Will Cogley!
While robots have only a made a comparatively recent appearance on the technology timeline, people have been building mechanical simulations of living organisms for a long time indeed. For proof, one needs only …read more
For humans, life is in the eyes. Same deal with automatons. The more realistic the eyes, the more lifelike (and potentially disturbing) the automaton is. [lkkalebob] knows this. [lkkalebob] is so dedicated to ocular realism in his ultra-real eyeballs that he’s perfected a way to make the minuscule veins from …read more
[Uri Tuchman] doesn’t always write with a dip pen. But when he does, he gets tired of re-inking it almost immediately. Now, convenience comes in many forms. He could make the switch to any number of modern writing instruments, sure. But that would be throwing out the baby with the …read more