Here’s the newest iteration of the toy theaters I’m developing for a public art project (there will eventually be 10 after I do a few more kid proofing fixes). The case, eccentric cams, gears, crank, waves and safety windows are CNC routed on a 1000 X-Carve. The scenery is laser cut acrylic with transparent and metallic cut vinyl (on a Glowforge and Graphtec plotter respectively). The cams and gears are screen printed. The scene is from a tale from One Thousand and One Nights. It was created for the Portland Winter Light Festival 2018.
More info, video, and images of this body of work can be seen here https://www.folktalefabrications.com/toy-theaters
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Wow, great use of both technologies. Visually stunning work and craftsmanship.
Thanks! I’ve been working out the kinks of this project for a year now, and It’s definitely getting close. Eventually they’ll be out unattended for 3 months so I’ve been play testing them like crazy, and hopefully the next prototype will be the one that doesn’t need supervision. It lasted 4 days of heavy usage by 10 thousand people last weekend in pacific northwest winter rain with only an issue that blue locktite fixed (loosening of the set screw in the gear collars), so after a few changes to the crank wheel and making decorative caps that hide the end rods (so kids don’t hold them while someone was cranking on the other side of the shaft) this iteration should be good to go, Then its on to figuring out some other mechanical movements since each toy theater will show a different scene. But I’m super happy with the transition from the first prototype to the second.
