Theo Jansen’s wind-powered sculptures

MIT Professor Erik Demaine talks about the math behind these sculptures in this video: http://courses.csail.mit.edu/6.849/fall12/lectures/C19.html

If you're in Paris, you can see some of his sculptures being showcased (with live performances every half hour where a demonstrator shows how they work) at la Cité des Sciences until January 4: http://www.cite-sciences.fr/fr/au-programme/expos-temporaire...

Saw it in April, and the whole exhibition was pretty cool. It's about art and robots. My favorite thing was the 3D water matrix by Christian Partos and Shiro Takatani: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TPvBV7VMqiY - I spent maybe an hour watching it.

This reminds me a bit of Calder's mobiles. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alexander_Calder#mediaviewer/Fi...

Although Jansen has taken it to the next level.

You can actually support his work by ordering mini version of Theo Jansens work at Shapeways:

http://www.shapeways.com/shops/theojansen

The BBC video also has interview with the creator - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HSKyHmjyrkA

EDIT - Also shows creatures with propellers, wings ..

Here's a nice animation showing the mechanics of (one of) the linkages http://tube.geogebra.org/student/m35150?at=c

The DVD sold on his website is absolutely fantastic. You can also buy small DIY wind-propelled tabletop creatures. I bought all of them :)

Goes well with http://www.reubenmargolin.com/