The Curious Crow, created as a result of the Cruft Fest project, is an automata that looks around curiously, moves its beak and taps its fingers when prompted to do so remotely. It is about 34 cm high x 24 cm in diameter that was made of mixed materials using following items: 

• Antenna from the unloved remote controlled car
• Found toy gears and bits
  
• Engine form forgotten cordless screw driver
  
• Random scraps or fur, metal, wood and plastic
• Kinetic design of fingers following Fingers MkIII by Nik Ramage
• Animatronic eyes design by LGProspects
• Arduino UNO and three micro servos

The links to the video of animatroinic eyes could be found here and the workings of the feet here .

Take a look at what others created on Flicker.

I recently took part in London's first Mini Maker Fair, and found my tribe. Sharing the simple fact that one could embroider electronic circuits just as once could embroider a pillow case, was rewarding far beyond my expectations. The following day, the organizers of the fair set up a number of  talks and panels at Victoria and Albert's Museum that discussed maker culture, art, electronics, politics and education. Cory Doctorow was the first one to speak, and among his legitimate concerns about the nature of the copyright, he urged us to take things apart in order to learn how they work. Now I have done this with garments and jewellery, and can testify that this is an exceptionally  useful technique. But I set there pondering where in a world I can find an automata to take apart. One of the following speakers was an incredible Tim Hunkin, who influenced generations of the makers through his work and through the BBC series called "The Secret Life of Machines" and who made us all giggle with his cheeky sense of humour manifested in his inventions. I have seen some of his clocks and quirky marvels, but I arrived to Britain too late for the broadcasting of the series, so I decided to watch it at home (and would insist that you watch it too, if you haven't yet!). Half way through the series, I found about the perfect automata to take apart:  my old broken sewing machine! Who would have suspected that the components of this technological marvel are the same basic components, that are used in the movements of automata figurines?! Perhaps I can finally figure it out, and either fix it or make something out of it! 

Hope you find something to take apart as well! 

to understand how the code had to be tweaked to  achieve the smooth pulsating effect, but once that was done, it was time to make an actual bracelet.  

To make a base armature, I stitched together parts of the bicycle  inner tube and covered up the Pulse Sensor, which provided some toughness for the look, and minimised moisture content and electrical interference from elements. Then, I embroidered the wings, backed the bracelet with felt and stitched in the electronics to the felt backing. Making the heart turned out to be the most difficult part, as I wanted to the light to be diffused, and support stitches not visible. Once the lights were in place, I connected them and an the heart into the electronics and run a few tests. Once I was sure that everything worked, it was time to line the bracelet with silk, ad button clips and final touches.

Materials: bicycle inner tube, conductive and silk, wool yarn & felt, silk fabric, button clips, Lilypad arduino, PulseSensor
Size: 7 cm wide, 28 cm long