Puppet Hand Mechanism (2006/2010)

I'll be taking down my old website soon, so I'm converting some of my old pages into blog posts so they don't vanish from the internet forever. This is one of them.

Palm of hand:

Back of hand:

This is the mechanism that gives Moss his working left hand. It's very low-tech, made of cardboard, drinking straws, elastic bands, masking tape, and invisible thread. The mechanism is based largely on this activity from Canadian children's science magazine YES Mag.

Below is a video from 2006 of the mechanism in action:

The red trigger seen in the video is from one of those "snapper" toys with a plastic animal head on the end of a stick.

In 2010, I replaced the trigger with the arrangement seen below: the four threads run through a hoop (made from a paperclip) on the arm rod's dowel and tie onto a plastic ring, which I pull to close the puppet's hand. This method gives me more control and a wider range of motion.