Greetings... I've finished my 14-day challenge on time. The Surfer weighs 3-1/2 pounds, is 20" tall, 17" wide, and 7" deep. Hand-cranked. 11 ball bearing assemblies. The only thing missing is its bras

Greetings... This COVID-19 situation is unlike anything I've ever experienced. Fortunately for me, it has not (yet) been a bad experience. As I ponder what my next automata project is to be I keep thi

I'm 10 days into my self imposed two-week challenge. The build is almost complete. I still need to work on the head and I need to add a fin(s) to the surfboard. After that, I need to disassemble and p

Well, in my last post I said that I would be beginning a self-imposed 'two-week automata build' challenge. I've begun. I spent about a week thinking about what I wanted to do...and settled on creating

Hello ALL Firstly, I hope you are all keeping well. Here in the UK, us over 70s have been told to not meet friends and family for 12 weeks. That is going to be really tough, but is essential for the g

ANNOUNCEMENT: Due to the continued developments on COVID-19 and for the safety of our attendees, we have decided to postpone AutomataCon to 2021. The new dates are May 21-23, 2021. The location and ho

Greetings from San Diego. I'm currently working on an automata titled "The Electric Chair". I've been working on this since November. Up until recently, I've been working on the mechanics parts of the

One of the articles in the most recent Automata Magazine (March-April 2020) is titled La Vraie Vie (Real Life) by Dominique Corbin. In that article she uses the term "Art Brut" and also gives a defini

The Electric Chair automata that I am (still) building has two major components: 1) The top part...the automata proper. 2) The Drive Frame...the automata sits on top of the drive frame. The Drive Fram

Thanks Marc... Lots to this issue (as with all past issues). I am impressed that you are able to crank out content of this quality for so many issues. I've deep read many of the articles...still have

Greetings... I love the world of automata and I enjoy learning. I especially enjoy learning about how to create automata. Last night I ran across Uri Tuchman. Here is a link to his YouTube video page.

Greetings... I've been slowly working through things to get The Electric Chair completed. It's slow...and it's hard to show the progress in such a manner that I think is interesting. That said...to no

I am in the process of creating an automata called 'The Electric Chair'. It is what it sounds like. One of the issues that I've been wanting to deal with is the clothing for both the convict and the g

I value this forum. Some of the posts so far have been from automatists that use 3D printers. I had been on the path of purchasing a mini lathe and a mill. After reading the 3D printer posts and after

Greetings...My current project is The Electric Chair. Slow progress. Lots of little details. This build includes what I call the Drive Frame. The drive frame sits below the automata and powers the aut

I'm finally ready to show my creation after several months of development. I thought it would be easier, but the next one will. Here is a link to a video.

Greetings... It would be interesting to know which of you own a metal lathe. If so my questions would be... Do you appreciate owning it? Practically speaking...does it help you? What size/brand is it?

My vote is Yes. I ran into this on YouTube a while ago...probably years ago. It was not until the last month or so that I equated Miniatur Wunderland to automata. Here is a link to their YouTube chann

A few years ago I was using SketchUp to do renderings for me. I found it to be both easy and difficult. And then one day I opened my eyes and realized that I had not used it for about a year. I went b

I was browsing 507 Mechanical Movements last night and this one caught my eye <http://507movements.com/mm_125.html>. It's a way of creating random linear motion. I think very interesting...and a mecha