Automata (a word I've heard pronounced several ways) are puppets attached to a mechanical contraption, usually hand cranked, which animates them to recreate life like actions. There are some very elaborate ones made by craftsman during the renaissance, and still today hobbyists will build wood automata. I've always wanted to make something like that, but never committed the time or resources to the task. When I found a paper-automata kit in a garage sale on the cheap, I snapped it right up.

In the kit, there are a couple of different projects. This one is called "Die Fledermaus." While Fledermaus is the German word for "Bat," it technically translates to "Flying Mouse," so the automata is of a mouse flapping his arms flying through the air. I started with the cam assembly. Although the instructions were a little on the vague side, everything was pretty much self explanatory. Tabs were grey where glue should be applied, and numbered so you could correspond the assembly.

After the cam, it was time to assemble the "stage," the box that would house the cam. It's always important to assemble things in the right order. The cam had to thread into the stage when it was glued together or else I'd never have been able to get it to fit. Once it was in, attaching the "washers" and crank to the cam shaft locked it in place.

The next part was the cam follower. This required a weight to ensure it would fall back down after the cam had lifted it. I suppose that with paper, there's not a lot of weight to each piece. Friction becomes a serious consideration if you want something to fall back into position. The whole cam follower mechanism ended up being quite interesting. The cam actually has 2 pivots that the follower is attached to. The result is a mechanism that can create 2 distinct actions from a single rotation.

Then it was time to assemble the mouse. This was fairly straight forward, and I made sure to leave the arms extra loose so that it could flap them. The last step was attaching the mouse to the contraption. The main body rod atop the cam follower, while the arms are attached to the second action. The result is that the whole mousse moves up and down, while also flapping his arms. Here it is fully assembled. I'll try to get a video uploaded soon!