This week’s selection is the Swimming Shark Automata by Cults contributor AMAO.
What might this design be? It’s an animated shark! When you turn the crank on the bottom, the levers move shark sections from side to side. Ingeniously, the mechanism’s movements simulates the swimming method of a shark: the tail flaps from side to side, and the body reacts appropriately with an S-curve movement.
AMAO explains:
“This Great White Shark Automata is a perfect fusion of mechanical engineering and underwater elegance. Utilizing a precision-engineered crankshaft mechanism, it transforms simple rotation into a fluid, wave-like motion, recreating the lifelike swimming posture of a Great White shark cruising through the deep sea.”
The shark model requires 3D printing of 28 parts, none of which are particularly tricky, except for the complex crankshaft as you can see in the image above. The next step is to assemble them into the full automation device, but that’s easy because AMAO has designed the system as a “no tool” project. All the parts simply snap or fit together easily.
This is a fun project that results in something everyone will feel compelled to crank. And it doesn’t bite, either.
Via Cults
