Greetings to all the Gepeto's out there,

It is my pleasure to be new to this great forum.  My name is Bryan Bridges and I teach middle school Industrial Technology "Shop" and Video Production at Leslie Middle School in Salem, Oregon USA.  I use puppets in our video classes as guest anchors with the students as well as have kids make their own.  I am currently on a quest to learn as much as I can about mechanical puppets or simple rod puppets that use a mechanical mouth control as well as eyes mechs.  I would love to find some simple builds that I can have my tech kids do.  There isn't much out there or it's difficult to find on how these work especially with understandable diagrams to help someone construct one.
Since I am new to this board, can any of you direct me to where there might be what I'm seeking either here or elsewhere?  Books, training videos, workshops on the West coast near Oregon, etc.....

Looking forward to sharing my creations and discovery with everyone.... after all that's what life is all about on many levels.  Everyone teaches and everyone learns.... except that one kid in my fifth period shop class.... what's that kid's problem?

Namaste,


Bryan Bridges

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff Bryan!  

It is going to be hard for you to find good diagrams for moveing mouth and eyes on rod puppets. There is this one over at Nick Barone's site that shows a mouth trigger that is very simple. http://www.puppetbuilder.com/info/rod.pdf  If you back up some he has a few other simple diagrams for Rod Puppets. http://www.puppetbuilder.com/info/index.html  They are all very basic but they are the basis for even more complex designs.

You might also want to try these image results at Google: http://images.google.com/images?hl=en&q=Rod+puppet+diagrams&sourceid=navclient-ff&rlz=1B3GGGL_enUS218US219&um=1&ie=UTF-8&ei=o95tS463Jo78sQOOraWxDQ&sa=X&oi=image_result_group&ct=title&resnum=1&ved=0CBAQsAQwAA

Link no longer available.If you can find a copy of this book it would be well worth it but at the time of posting there was only one used copy available for $135.00.  You might get lucky and find it in your local library. Hand and Rod Puppets: A Handbook of Technique (Hardcover) by  Hansjurgen Fettig ISBN #0823801403


I am not sure if this next book has moving mouth and eyes detailed in it or not but I do know that Robert's diagrams are very good.  I had some pre published versions of this at one time and this book would be well worth it. It is marionettes but often mechanics can be translated to Rod Puppetry.
http://store.puppeteers.org/index.php?main_page=product_info&products_id=59

Wish I had more for you but hopefully those well help some.  Perhaps some of the other members can help out also.  There are a couple of threads in the forum on moving eyes but they focus on hand in mouth puppets for the most part.  Again the concept is the same so it could be translated to work for rod puppets.  Here are links to a couple of the threads:
http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,3560.0.html
http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,3778.0.html
http://puppetsandstuff.com/community/index.php/topic,2964.0.html

Welcome to Puppets and Stuff........... looks like shawn has given you some good things to look at.

Billy D.

Welcome to puppets and stuff. Let us know if you find any other resources.

I would love to see some examples of your students work if you could post pictures or videos

  hey,  to P&S
And yes, we like to see pics

Welcome!

As for eye mechs, I think you should check out Puppeteers Unite's video:
http://puppeteersunite.com/?page_id=588

One of our memebers, Jay, has a great video on mechanical eyes. http://www.drpuppet.com/video_tutorial_page_1.html

Julie