spinning helicopter seeds I made a little spinner and tried attaching a variety of objects to it - a paper mobius strip, sticks, chunks of glass. Here's the last thing I tried - one of those "helicopter" seeds from a tree. This was taken while the seeds were spinning, with a long exposure (this one was probably about 1 second). I like that it starts to suggest a very different (and symmetrical) shape.

Last week I made an automata sculpture using a clock motor. I attached the main rod to the hour hand, and put 12 cams on it. When I made it, I was thinking about how to show time a different way (this is sort of like a linear clock), and also I really wanted to make an automata that is motor, not crank driven. The cams move very slowly - so slowly that you can't see them move if you just stare at it, so you have to go do something else and come back to notice a change.

Fringed horseshoe crab made from folded and cut construction paper. This creature is pretty simple - the "animal" part is just construction paper that conceals the motor and wheels that make it move. I didn't have any particular animal in mind when I started the project - I just wanted to see what I could make out of folded paper. It looks sort of like a horseshoe crab with fringes and no tail.