The assembly video and plans for this little dancing bird automata are free for you to use. This is my own original design, but as long as you don’t put my logo on your physical version I don’t care if you make and sell them. Please consider letting people know that you got this design from me. I am trying to build a community of kinetic artists and enthusiasts and the best way to do that is by openly sharing our work and the people who inspired us. Check out my links page for other automata and kinetic artists that helped to inspire me.
I finally got brave enough to make a video on how to make a simple automaton. This was my first try at this kind of video and it’s a bit rough, but I think it’s pretty good at showing how I make these little automata, so I hope that you find it helpful.
The PDF (below) has all of the measurements to scale, so you can print it out and use it as a cutting template for the cams & tail pieces. It should print out on most printers to scale, but check your printer is not set to “shrink to fit” or something similar and then compare the printed copy with a ruler to be sure it’s scaled correctly before you use it as a template.