The House of Automata made paper figures that move thanks to sand. Learn a brief history of acrobatics and get inspired to make your own sand toy in their video on YouTube:
Sand Automata are moving tableau powered by falling sand. They have been popular for centuries. We look at the famous Leotard Acrobat Sand Toy, a 19th century Drummer and a Juggler with four balls.
With the emphasis as much on the inside mechanism as on the scene behind the glass The House of Automata explains the secret of these surprisingly good automata.
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Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat – we’ll post the link there.
