Micro Automata
Materials: • Wide clean plastic cup or clear solo cup. • A straw • Skewers • Bottle caps • Foam core • Tape Tools: • Scissors • Hot glue gun • A wood screw • Phillips screw driver or pencil Automata meaning self operating machine typically consisted of a clockwork statue or scene and were first created centuries ago in Europe and Asia. They were in many ways the direct ancestor of what became electro mechanical robots. For our purposes automata are a good way to explore machine's function of converting one form of energy and motion into another. They are also a way to teach simple mechanical problem solving skills. Micro automata were the first in our series of attempts to simplify cardboard automata. The basic idea was to avoid building the box by putting the mechanism inside a clear plastic container. Mechanically they are very simple. They have a input shaft with a crank coming out the side and an output shaft coming out the top with a ...