Automata

My automaton's concept was this: in life, you don't always win. In fact, you probably won't (3/4 of the time). I exhibited this concept by constructing a box that is reminiscent of a fortune teller booth painted black with a black "curtain" in the back. The front of the automata features a large circular hole that the viewer can look into and see their "fortune".
In the center of the automaton is a hanging box that features four sides ("no", "no", "no", "yes"). The idea is that the viewer would turn the crank at the top and would be given their "fortune" with one small turn of the box. For my gears I chose to create a Geneva Stop not only because I liked the intermittent motion, but because it fit my concept well.
Constructing my gears was very difficult using cardboard. Because the Geneva Stop motion requires very smooth surfaces to function correctly, my automaton did not always work. The gears would trip up often and I'd have go back in and reset them. I try to fix the them to make them work 100% of the time but it was near impossible with the cardboard. In turn, the technical skill in this project was sacrificed for the concept of the piece.