This project represented the first time I had ever attempted to construct an automaton — a machine or control mechanism designed to follow automatically a predetermined sequence of operations or respond to encoded instructions.

This was an entry into the 2024 International Miniatures Challenge, requiring contestants to produce a hand powered automaton miniature in the format of our choice.

I decided to design my automaton as a book nook and already had a theme I wished to explore — two gentlemen on a victorian-era train (c. 1900).

I was especially motivated to create this project as my great-grandfather, William Webster, became regionally famous for the fully automated scale farms he created and toured across the midwest United States during the 1930s and ’40s. Ever since I was a young boy, I was fascinated with his work and wished to learn how he had created such an incredibly detailed narrative among the multitude of tiny moving figures.

My design required the development of a hand-cranked gear train which would operate the various moving elements in the scene. Once I had planned all the gear ratios, I printed the various gears on my 3D resin printer before securing them to an MDF base. Various cams driven by the gear train served to create the repetitive motion of the characters above the floor:

One gentleman scans his newspaper while periodically folding and unfolding the paper to simulate a change of page. The second gentleman, seated across from the first, raises a tobacco pipe to his lips every twelve seconds in a contemplative pose. At his feet is a leather satchel whose lid opens every twelve seconds to reveal the head of a British Beagle whose head surreptitiously scans back and forth before the lid closes again.

While all of the above action takes place, three scenery loops outside the window display the moving landscape in parallax as the background, middle ground, and foreground all move at different speeds to help achieve a sense of depth in motion.

I am quite pleased to say that, despite the challenges and setbacks I experienced, the model took first place in the competition, although, it required considerable effort, right up to the last minute of the deadline.