This is a really great intro to Japanese karakuri, or automata (the original robots, without electricity). You must see the man drawing caligraphy... it's a work of genius!

Great find Na!  Thanks for sharing.

It truly is amazing what these automata can do. Love the archer.  Notice the subtle inflections in the movement of the heads on both him and the one that is drawing.

I'd love to see these in real life. I've seen automata before, but they've not been as 'refined' as the ones in this video.

Those are beautiful! I'd love to see the schematics for some of these automata.

Me too! I was trying to work out whether or not the caligraphy paper 'resets' and goes blank again... it looked like it did, but I wasn't sure if it was just video editing or not.

Good question Na.  I had just assumed that the frame held a normal piece of paper that could be easily replaced. Somewhere in the back of my mind I am remembering another atomata that did this and it was a new piece of paper each time.  Seems it could write more then one thing depending on the settings.... hmmm now where was that?

Found it... or at least one video on it.

Here is a video with information on this automaton.


The history of these wonderful creatures is fascinating.  It is great to see that there are still craftsman out there like in the video that Na first posted who take the time to create them.

Here is more information on Automatons in general. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automaton  Also I had always used the term automaton when referring to such marvels so was curious about the word Automata.  I thought perhaps it was the plural of the word and it seems it is. http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/automata  Just one more reference from Wikipedia. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automata_theory

They get such refined and subtle movements, incorporating some of that into human powered puppets would be really great.

This Dutch artist made some living sculptures out of plastic tubing and pop bottles. The idea is they live in the beach. He equipped them with some rudimentary sensors and the ability to harvest and store pressurized air in their pop bottles so they are able to avoid getting swept to sea in the tides and during sea storms. I think what he's created could be called autonomous automata.