15th June 2001
Japan
Thanks to everyone in Japan who made my visit there so fantastic! Below is a photo taken at the exhibition of automata featuring some of our models!

Marble release
A new trial mechanism. The top ramp is stocked with marbles. Once started it releases one marble which runs down the second ramp, as it reaches the bottom of the ramp the ramp lifts and releases the next marble, and so it goes...
The mechanism now works in a very satisfying manor, (should be fun to animate!) The next stage is to use the mechanism to drive some cunning and ingenious model :-)

Gears
Another prototype, another mechanism looking for a model... cardboard gearing in this case.

More accurately it is a worm gear, the bottom part is a very short section of a worm. For each turn of the bottom drive the top gear turns by two teeth. The overall reduction of speed is six to one. Usually with gearing a Becton of speed is matched by an increase in power but not in the case of card gears where the strength of the card is a limiting factor.

The whole assembly fits nicelyinto this box and works in a very satisfying manor!

Back to work...

- Rob