Snakes are not everyone’s favourite. Still I think it is unkind to exclude them from the wonderful world of automata. My snake has a sort of cobra pose, head swaying in the air to some invisible piper’s tune. As a very friendly snake it has no fangs and instead has bright pink, kissable lips. A very colourful body adds to its appeal and as a short-sighted girl, a pair of spectacles add a vulnerable touch hopefully calming the nerves of even the most worried visitor.
The Technical Brief
This is a fairly simple construction. Turning the handle rotates the camshaft which moves one end of the the rod connected to the snake’s head along a circular path, making the head attached to the other end of the rod do something similar. Making the central horizontal part of the bearing as wide as possible automatically constrains the camshaft so that it stays in position. No extra parts are needed to prevent the shaft from slipping to the left or to the right as the handle is turned.
Making
The snake itself is a sequence of wooden beads threaded onto a piece of waxed string. A small wooden egg serves as the head, with a hole drilled to glue it to the connecting rod for the camshaft.
I again used 3 mm dowel to pin the parts together before gluing. This makes both the fine adjustment and the painting easier.
With such a wide bearing, the connecting rod up to the snake’s head might slip off centre and jam. I found that making the hole through which the rod passes large enough allowed things to rattle around and avoid any jamming.
Reflections
Threading beads onto a string results in a very flexible assembly. It is so flexible that it moves where gravity pulls it. It was only by using a rod, that at least the snake’s head can be directed to follow a particular path. I wondered whether the idea would be good for an elephant’s trunk, but I was flummoxed by the complexity of making the trunk curl, especially when trying to make something small.
I had also considered adding a small orange to the scene as something that a short-sighted snake might use to tempt us (mistaking it for an apple). I sensibly abandoned this idea as requiring too much explanation.
Rob Ives offers a kit for a very similar snake automaton, only his is made of card (https://www.robives.com/project/sssnake-download-and-mmmmake/).