Rob Higgs is an artist who makes extraordinarily convoluted machines — or at least one: the “Corkscrew”, a self-cast monstrosity for gears and levers which does, unbelievably, actually work as a half-ton corkscrew for a bottle of wine.
I’ll take two. (Which may be possible; as part of the One of a Hundred project, they may actually sell these things for lots and lots of money. But probably not.)
Video of the Corkscrew build and in use [OneOfAHundred.co.uk] (Thanks, August!)
The plate at the end seems to say that it’s an edition of 100.
It’s an awesome thing — but do you have to take the bottle out of it to pour a second glass?
i think you’ll find that’s a heath robinson corkscrew.
Anyone know the song in the video?
I like the idea of enabling talented designers to create objects of ambitious quality, but there is a part of One Of One Hundred’s ethos that I disagree with: “Our limited editions can only be viewed by personal invitation – this preserves the integrity of the artwork”. I can see how producing unique items in limited runs is a reaction against mass production, but enforcing rarity in such an aggressive way seems arrogant.
Earlier today I read some Slashdot responses about the decline of the player piano roll production, the drama being that while there is still a great niche attraction to the mechanical player piano vs. a digital one, they are not cutting edge enough technologically to maintain the industry. Maybe a group like One Of One Hundred could finance the hand-creation of player piano rolls, but if they would only be available to a wealthy minority, then whats the point?
Rapid prototyping may be a more flexible approach to keeping the niche mechanical device market moving.
They are NOT making a hundred of these. Not with the process shown in the video, at least.
Yeah. AVRAAMOV is right. Can we have more Heath Robinson devices please.
Who is this Rube Goldberg that you speak of?