Very Cute Halloween Costume: A Cuckoo Clock of course!

From playdrmom:

"Honor has been quite interested in cuckoo clocks. Also, one of her favorite songs is “Tick tock tick tock. I’m a little cuckoo clock. Tick tock tick tock. Now I’m striking one o’clock.” So, when asked what she wanted to be for Halloween … she said “a cuckoo clock”."

Click through to the website for instructions! I know what my son will dress up as next year!

More Great Automata!

As always, we're scouring the internets to find you the most interesting postings of fascinating automata!



[via Kugelbahn]



[via io9]

Hugo Cabret

The book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick has been on our reading list for quite some time (Take a look at the other titles while you're at it... just on the side bar of the blog) So, it's great to see that Martin Scorsese has made a movie!



This is Steampunk and Clockworkpunk gone mainstream!

New super-accurate atomic clocks

From New Scientist:

"Clocks that gain or lose no more than a fraction of a second over the lifetime of the universe could be on the way, thanks to a technique for cutting through the "heat haze" that compromises the accuracy of today's instruments.

The most accurate atomic clock we have now is regulated by the electrons of a single aluminium ion as they move between two different orbits with sharply defined energy levels. When an electron goes from the higher energy level to the lower it emits radiation of a precise frequency. That frequency is used to mark out time to an accuracy of better than 1 part in 1017, or 1 second in 3 billion years.

That's pretty good, but it could be better. Infrared photons emanating from the background cause the two energy levels to shift by slightly different amounts..."

[via io9]

Catch up on news from the world of clocks

We've been silent for a while, so here's a bunch of news from the world of clocks to catch up a bit...



[from AdaFruit]



[from Automata Blog]



[from Makezine]



[from Automata Blog]