Automata, Carving and Kite Flying by Graham Lockwood

Thanks to Jill Smith, who met Graham at a British Hardwood’s event, we had a fascinating talk on Automata Making, Wood Carving and Kite Flying.

In the beginning Graham was tasked with making clowns for his daughter and from this Automata grew

Talking to members, we were all of the opinion that none of us had the skills to produce the mechanisms that made the automata work. We all bring something from our past into our carvings and I have asked Graham about this. He replied that” he was an Apprentice trained mechanical engineer. City and Guilds part 1 and 2. Self Employed Engineer. Studied for three years at Graphic Design. He was lucky enough to get into a drawing office which developed his skill of being able to visualise things in three dimensions. Retrained as a Design and Technology teacher. Helping pupils with their ideas certainly helped with designing automata. Joining a woodworkers group certainly lifted his skills at automata building to a much higher level.

Getting started to build automata .. it certainly helps if you copy very simple example and get an understanding of how different mechanisms work. Looking at a complicated automaton is frighteningly deceptive. Breaking each aspect down to its individual mechanism simplifies things.”

I asked how many different types of mechanisms he had used, and he answered with a question “How many types of movement are there?” He answered his own question with “Only 4 , Linear, Rotary, Reciprocating and Oscillating”

Linear motion is movement in a straight line, such as a train running down a straight track or a cyclist riding on a level road.
Rotary motion involves spinning around a fixed axis, like a bicycle wheel turning or a ceiling fan
Reciprocating motion is repeated up-and-down or back-and-forth movement, such as the piston in a car engine or a water pump.
Oscillating motion is a swinging movement around a pivot point, similar to the pendulum on a clock or children playing on a park swing.

Waving Hand

This is an example of Rotary motion. Turning the handle on the left turns a wheel / cog in the middle, which turns another wheel / cog connected to the hand. The automata changes the rotation from vertical to horizontal., rather like the cogs in a wind or water mull for grinding corn.

Jumping kangaroos

Are they only jumping or doing something naughty

This example brought questions from his class of 12 year olds who were a bit more worldly wise than we would hope. I think that this is Reciprocating motion

Running Comic figures

The sort of hero found in the Beano. A student came up withe the idea and Graham had to make it work.

Dancing figure

This had the same sort of movement as the things other people have on their car dashboard, some sort of pendulum is activated by movement and perpetuated. Graham’s also had a motor that just kept her dancing

I did not really understand this one. The person in the green hat is hitting a ball into a glass, but there was a lot of other things going on too.

Lionfish and other sea dwellers

We only saw this on a screen as it is as delicate as it looks. The plaice opened it’s eyes, and the shell opened to. All sorts of bits of the lionfish moved too.