My Fifth Automaton (The Chess Players)

This piece was inspired by a Satyajit Ray movie titled "The Chess Players". It showed two Indian nobles obsessed with playing chess while India was being invaded and conquered by the British and French colonial powers.

Again, as it was to serve as a prototype, construction was to be of lightweight foamcore board, built on a piece of wood, spray painted to create a marble effect and adorned with cuttings from magazines. I decided to build a larger box with sufficient space for easier manipulation of the inner mechanism and also, to house my other smaller musical box automata. The front panel was held in place by simple magnetic latches. I created a simple viewing acetate panel  to keep it light weight.

The scene depicted an Indian chess player about to make his move. It probably was an unexpected chess move and the British plenipotentiary is turning his head quizzically to look at his aide who shakes his head in disbelief. Meanwhile, the static French diplomat, dressed in hussar uniform looks on intently. A snake charmer is playing his flute and his upper body sways in time to the music, sliding in a hollow space on his lower legs. The cobra is animated by a thin wire, which when it rises, rocks from side to side. The belly dancer has the same mechanism as the snake charmer. The place guards are stationary figures.

A single cam mechanism activates many of these movements, all connected to a single bent wire follower directly connected to the chess player's right hand, and variations are created for the other diverse movements by having accessory wires and loose connections. A separate rotating cam with a different speed, tilted at about 45 degrees, gives another set of movements. The vibrating movements are created by small springs attached to the pieces to give some variations.

With this piece, I've completed my first series of five musical automata.

I had also made another small musical automaton. The musical movement connected directly to the arms of a shadow puppeteer. You can imagine that the arms turned furiously fast to move the puppets as there is no cam or other mechanism to slow the turning movement. I don't have a picture of this piece as I had given it away as a present.