Released on 2 February 2006, Wandering in the Sky (WITS) is the largest and most complex paper automaton I have designed. A clown pedals a tricycle while a small bird beats its wings above him: several movements are generated from a single hand-driven mechanism and coordinated through gears, cranks and levers.
A three-gear train drives the tricycle wheels. The birdâs wings are animated by a Scotch yoke, which converts rotary motion into a reciprocating movement. The clownâs legs are connected to the pedals, while a system of levers coordinates the movement of his right arm and head.
Most of the model is assembled without glue using my Removable Interlocking Pin System (RIPS). The construction is deliberately mechanical: the moving parts remain visible enough to make the transmission of motion part of the model itself.
With 171 parts and a height of nearly 40 cm, WITS is less a desk toy than a small travelling theatre made of paper. A turn of the crank sets the scene in motion: the wheels begin to roll, the clown pedals, an arm rises, a head nods, and the little bird above comes to life. What fascinates is not any single mechanism, but the way gears, levers and joints pass movement from one to another until the whole figure seems, for a moment, to have found a rhythm of its own.
Technical data
- Mechanisms: 3-gear train, levers, Scotch yoke
- Number of parts: 171
- Size: 170 Ă 130 Ă 400 mm (h)
- Paper: 160 gsm / US 90 lb card stock
- Instructions: Italian and English, colour illustrated
- Difficulty: 4/5
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