Tag: Automata

More Paper

Ski Rex!

The first set of Dinosaurs only gave rise to more paper things. I started with Ski Rex, the same dinosaur, but now connected to Skis. You turn the crank and it skis over the top of the box. It’s wonderful and since I printed a blank dinosaur on blue paper, it’s blue! The original was Pink and that just wasn’t going to happen. This pattern is available here.

Globe!

Afterwards, I started on a Globe & Moon set. This was not an automata and doesn’t have a crank, but it’s pretty cute. Apparently the Moon is to the scale of the Globe. You can turn the globe if you want to, and I wanted to.. This is the link.

Double Giraffes!

Last but not least, I made the double Giraffe automaton, twice. With the first one, which is at the end of the video, I did not make the neck holes large enough, so the necks get stuck in there. Then I also placed the giraffes too close together so their heads bump all the time. The second version works much better and is so Giraffy! The pattern is here.

I still have a bunch of goats printed but not cut or assembled, we’ll see when I get to those.

Paper Models

In the past two weeks or so, I was browsing the internet again and found a model of a paper dinosaur and a nodding sheep that were extremely awesome. I found them via instructables on a site called robives.com. Some patterns are provided for free and require printing on card. So I searched around the city for some card as specified and printed the patterns. I got out my little knife set, glue and scissors and got to work. A few hours later, there was an adorable nodding sheep on my table.

Some card, some glue, ink and two coins. It’s amazing how little it takes to create such a fascinating thing, that can actually move by cranking. So after the success of the sheep, I made the little dinosaur. This one doesn’t move of it’s own accord, but it is posable. The mechanism that allows it is very easy but works really well. Since I was an idiot and didn’t realize that the pattern has both a coloured and a white version, I printed the two designs in full and therefore twice. So I now have two nodding sheep and two dinosaurs.

Then I figured out that there were so many more awesome dinosaurs on the Rob Ives page that I bought a few of the models there. So I also have a sheep that shakes it’s head no and a dinosaur inspecting a little mouse. The disagreeable sheep has an interesting vertical mechanism, still with a crank. The Rise of the Mammals has four gears (these were an absolute pain to cut out) and a crank. It moves both the dinosaur and the little mouse. It’s still incredible that this can move, at least to me.

For now, bye from my new collection of paper critters, and I expect more in the future.