Awesome Mechanical

Mechanical engineer Kiyoshi Adachi created this wonderful work of kinetic wall art which features a tiny metal man who turns a crank, setting into motion a ballet of spinning gears and dancing rods. Those elliptical gears are especially cool.

Most watches that ToykoFlash sells have digital displays, but the Rotar is pure analog goodness. It tells the time using a series of three revolving discs, which spin into view like the numbers on an old school car odometer. Choose from a black, bronze, gold, or silver face — limited time release price through 10.25.21.

JBV Creative loves to make unique machines using 3D printed parts. Inspired by a computer simulation of a similar contraption, he created a mechanism that splits a circle into four quadrants, flips them over, and reassembles them with a turn of its crank. You can purchase the STL files at the link.

Jigsaw puzzles can be loads of fun, but they also take up lots of table space. Simone Giertz came up with a solution by designing and building a an overly-complex dining table. Its tambour wood roll-top conceals a jigsaw puzzle compartment that rises like an elevator. That painter’s tape and glue clamp is a neat hack.

Ian Davis needed a prosthetic to replace four fingers on his left hand. Rather than purchase a commercial model, he engineered an awesome metal hand that looks like something straight out of The Terminator. It’s capable of opening, closing, splaying its fingers, and makes satisfying sounds as it flexes.

NY firm Breakfast has carved out a niche, building interactive displays that use electromechanical flipping discs to display images. Among their installations is this ultrawide variant with woodgrain and mirrored surfaces that reflect people’s silhouettes as they walk by, revealing similarities in human behavior.

With the advent of pay stations and mobile parking apps, meters are becoming a rare sight. But these coin-collecting dinosaurs still have some neat mechanical bits worth exploring inside of them, as Rescue & Restore shows as they down a 1960s Duncan meter and makes it like new again. That shiny red coat is a thing of beauty.

With just 26 letters in our alphabet, English speakers have it easy. When it comes to Japanese and Chinese, there are literally hundreds of characters. In this video from Typewriter Collector, they show off a rare Toshiba typewriter that can type in all three languages. It uses a spinning drum on a moving carriage to select letters.

Created by Tentacle Media Ltd., the Mini-Mutoscope is a 3D-printed replica of a 19th-century mechanical flipbook. The display works like an animation flipbook, only its movements are smoothly controlled by a crank. It holds up to 42 squares that you can load with your own animations, or one of the samples provided by Tentacle.

In the world of Spider-Man, Dr. Otto Octavius (better known as Doc Ock) has been augmented with a set of mechanical tentacles he uses for nefarious purposes. JLaservideo teamed up with a few internet friends to design and build a working tentacle backpack, and then gave it mind-control capabilities.

Generic Woodworking has built some pretty amazing mechanical wooden models, including a drill-powered wooden car, complete with a working engine, transmission, and steering. He recently upgraded the car with a functional odometer, which can track the distance that its wheels have traveled. See it in action at 10:55.

Motorized LEGO cars usually drive in a straight line, or maybe can turn left and right. But Konstrakt Abstrakt designed this unusual Technic vehicle that can reconfigure its four motors and wheels to maneuver into tight parking spaces. You can find the full parts list on Rebrickable.

V. Idea is an expert at building mechanical things out of cardboard, popsicle sticks, and hot glue. Watch them put together a fully-functional model of a 6-speed manual transmission with a working gear shifter. There’s no clutch pedal though.

Luxury watchmaker Vianney Halter designed this incredible 3-axis tourbillon, inspired by astrophysics. Under its domed crystal is an intricate mechanism that rides on a pair of synchronized balance wheels, encircled by a time display. Just two of these timepieces will be made each year, with a price tag just under $1 million.

Works by Solo’s fidget toy is handmade from 26 components, including bike chain, custom-cut sprockets, and bearings to create a unique metal plaything. Its two gears can rotate independently, and move smoothly so you can get some speed going. See how it works and how the design came together in the video clip.

In the 1800s, an engineering reference book showed off a pulley design that could expand its size. Angus of Maker’s Muse wanted to see if he could replicate the part using 3D printing, and along the way found a different use for it, and incorporated the mechanism into a nifty looking puzzle box.