Motorized wooden crawler by Osamu Kanda

Another video of a nifty wooden creation from Osamu Kanda -- this one called, appropriately, Crawl. I love the creative use of a film feed mechanism. Add motor, wooden gears, wheels, and front legs and there is something compelling about the way it pulls itself along.

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Roullet & Decamps walking peacock automaton

Here's a cool antique automaton from the famous French automata-makers, Roullet et Decamps. This spring-driven peacock from the turn of the century walks forward while moving its head from side to side. The tail feathers (missing at present) move too.

From the eBay description:

This is a nice "PAON MARCHANT...."WALKING PEACOCK"....MADE BY ROULLET-DECAMPS, PARIS, FRANCE C.1890-1910......The body is made of mache paper it is in regular conditions with details. It doesn't have feathers...... The mechanism is in good conditions and it is clockwork and working, it walks to the front and moves the head from one side to the other side and the tail too...... the measures 6.5 inches large by 8 inches tall.

Here's the full listing with 12 different photographs of this walking peacock automaton.

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Unpowered Walkers and Hoppers

These clever devices, created by Peter Steinkamp, explore gravity-powered step-by-step locomotion.

There are eight videos on his site, showing a variety of inventive models that use this form of movement.

One of the creator's future goals is to incorporate what was learned from these working models into a passive bipedal robot.

Check out these fascinating gravity-powered walkers and hoppers.