Automata Tinkering Workshop Sketches to Prototypes

Since the early days of the covid-19 pandemic, I’ve been collaborating with the folks at Cabaret Mechanical Theatre to develop an online tinkering workshop where participants authentically go through the process of trying kit-based projects, brainstorming possibilities and creating their own amazing automata.

We’re now gearing up for the sixth(!) iteration of the Automata Global Tinkering Workshop which will be led by WICO collaborator Celeste Moreno who along with a group of curious facilitators will support participants to develop their own ideas and physical prototypes. Sign ups are open now and the early bird rate ends on July 11th. Here’s the link to sign up:

I wanted to give a bit of an idea of the type of projects that learners made during the online workshop (and the process that they go through along the way). In each six-week workshop we spend the first two sessions with kit-based projects, the second two sections getting more complex with mechanisms and electronics and then the last two sessions turn things over to participants to develop their own ideas. Here are personal explorations from three participants who joined our last workshop in May/June. As part of the course we try to share sketches and works in progress along with the final versions.

Liz explored the story of a girl and a cat making shadow puppets. Throughout the course we emphasized that you can approach automata through the mechanisms of through the narrative as the starting point based on your personal ideas and process.

Scott created a wonderful sketch of an automata project using a row of cams to animate a cheerful caterpillar. We’d explored cams in an earlier week with cardboard box kit from Fire the Inventor, but this project took things much deeper.

Terri shared the sketch for a beautiful automata with a rainforest theme that made use of the planetary gears. We didn’t address this mechanism in the course but I think that our experiments with the pegboard based automata tinkering kit gave her confidence to research and try her hand at more complex motions. I also appreciate the idea of automata elements mounted on springs which migrated from guest artist Lisa Slater to several of the participants projects.

And Joss created this really cool miniature automata built inside of a walnut shell. I think that one of the most fun things about the online course is that while we provide a range of materials to start, participants naturally end up using different things that they find around their houses, workshops and schools.

Thanks to Scott, Terri and Joss for documenting and sharing their projects and for all of the participants in the course for exploring equally complicated, funny and personally meaningful designs. It’s been really fun to lead a workshop where we don’t know what the final outcomes will be and are surprised and delighted by the discoveries that the learners make during the workshop. If you’d like to be part of the next workshop sign up today because spots are limited!