In the Sep-Oct issue 2022 of Automata Magazine we showed you Animals in Orbit. As the number of animals has increased over time here in Berlin, this has caused a queue of visitors all waiting for their turn up in orbit.
So, instead of them just joining the lengthening queue to go into orbit, I thought that I would keep them amused by making a seesaw. Yet another way to bring movement to what are otherwise fairly static characters.
New Animals
Amongst other interesting new visitors, this friendly bee flew in one day out of my wife’s bonnet and decided to stay.
This curious animal is a rare specimen of the teapoticus nervosus, commonly known as the nervous teapot. Lifting its red knob raises the lid to let light right in, often dazzling the poor creature.
So what’s the brief?
For a change, I thought that I would avoid using a box as the base and instead I went for a flat base whilst still opting to turn a small handle to create the up and down motion. To keep the seesaw low, this meant putting the crank mechanism off to the side, with a long linkage to push and pull the short lever between the supports for the seesaw.
Making
The plug-in “seats” for the animals are the same as for Animals in Orbit, just with a different paint job. A wild black and white spiral pattern draws attention to how the movement is produced.
The important bit is the “crankshaft” which transforms the rotary motion from turning the red-headed lever into a to-and-fro movement for the stripey connecting linkage.
Here you can see that I used 3 mm dowel pins and corresponding holes to locate the four sidepieces. Using pins like this means that I can put it together and take it to pieces as often as needed to ensure that the movement is correct. It also means that flashy paintwork is easier to do before parts are permanently glued in place, sometimes getting in the way of masterful brushstrokes!
Reflections
Ultimately it is the passengers who bring this to life. With no one having fun it is a dull spectacle. It looks best when the animals look at one another, just as in real life, perhaps goading one another to seesaw even higher or even faster. The mechanism is pretty simple and, as usual, the bright red knob shows you what to turn to bring things to life. For small friends who come to visit, Animals in Orbit has become quite a favourite and now, together with this seesaw, the possible permutations and combinations of which figure goes where seem to be endless, and no one has to get bored standing in the queue with nothing to do.
Images to Download
https://www.wordwise.de/Seesaw_archive.zip