I’ve always loved automata or automatons, I’ve made a few kits in my time, but recently wanted to make some of my own design.

I decided to combine my love of space with the making of automata. I went with a little moon rover and satellite.

Supplies

Material and tools.

nothing special is needed to make automata, you can make it out of card and cocktail sticks using scissors and tape, but in my moon rover one I used:

Materials:

-MDF 2 or 3mm thick.

-Hard board any thickness really but thinner stud is easier to cut and is lighter.

-Cardboard tube, mine was the inside of a roll of printing vinyl because that’s what I had access to, but carpet roll tube or any larger card tube would work.

-Tissue paper.

-Wooden dowels or skewers.

-Paints and brushes

-Wood glue and or wood screws. Screws are good as you can take things apart and fix or maintain the automata if needs be.

Tools:

-Handsaw , jigsaw , scroll saw. A saw of some description to cut the wood

-Sandpaper, files etc.

-A drill with a drill bit the same size as your dowel or skewers.

It would probably be best to read the whole instructable to make sure I didn’t miss anything out of this section.

Step 1: Planning.

I like to sketch out ideas for what I want it to look like or how I think the mechanism might work.

Once I think I’ve got it planned correctly I move to the next stages.

There aren’t any measurements in this as I just cut things to sizes that I felt looked good or worked well with what I planned. I use planned very loosely.

Step 2: Construction

The depth of the main box of the automata is dictated by how big I wanted the tube/moon to be.

I cut the card tube to a width that I felt looked good and gave me enough space to build a little rover and have moon surface around it.

The tube/moon also dictated the height of the box and the mechanism for moving the automata along with the tube/moon is how I worked out how wide the front and back panels will be.

The mechanism to make the tube/moon move is just a friction drive cam, a circle of wood glued to the drive shaft and placed at the right distance from the tube/moon. It’s probably better to be slightly too close than too far away, this will give the drive some tension and if there is too much tension you can sand the drive cam a bit until it works correctly.

all the parts for the mechanisms are cut on a scroll saw, but could be done by hand with a fret saw.

I glued some wooden block on the sides of the front and back panels so I can screw the side panels on later.

Step 3: Construction Pt2

This stage is a continuation of the last.

once the front and back panels have been sized and have the fixing blocks glued on the side I made the side panels.

you can see in the second picture how the wheel on the drive shaft presses against the tube/moon. This is what will make the moon move.

I also decided to make the handle look like a shooting star just for fun, so that was just cut from the same mdf sheet.

In the fourth picture you can see the main cam in the middle to drive the tube/moon and a small front washer, which is used to keep the drive shaft in the correct place and not sliding forwards or back.m, and the rear cam which is the one that will push on the wire to make the satellite move.

There will be a cam behind the tube/moon and that is to make the moon lander move a little bit while rolling on the moon.

The star plate , the big disc at the back is attached to the back of the centre shaft. This way it will turn when the tube/moon turns. It won’t be glued in place until near the end of the process.

Step 4: Making the Lander and Sat

I forgot to take photos of making of the lander and satellite.

but here are some photos of the finished items.

the satellite was just a dowel sanded down to a bit of a point and I glued some panels to the side to look like solar panels.

The rover had some drilled dowels for the wheels and random shapes and things stuck to the top to make it look like a little moon robot.

Step 5: Adding the Movement.

Using some strong wire, I bent some lengths so they would press against the cams when everything was assembled. The wire is kept too long until the final design is done, it’s always best to trim to size than not have enough length

The block that holds the wire in place has two holes drilled into it and is glued to the back panel so it holds the wire firmly in place.

once I got the metal wire bent enough to press firmly on the cams I did a test fit of all the parts to see if the worked as I wanted them to.

Step 6: Gather All the Parts!

Once I had made all the parts (minus the two top plates) I got them all together, one to make sure everything works and fits together, and two because I thought they looked good all laid out. :)

Now is time to glue the back star plate to the centre shaft. Also trim the satellite wire so it sits in front of the back star plate.

Step 7: Top Plates.

When The mechanism is all correct and working I cut two bits of mdf to fit on top of the box, to hide the workings inside.

The two top panels are secured in place by being glued to the two side plates. You can just see the wood blocks on either side in the last photos.

Step 8: Moon Surface.

Using PVA glue and tissue paper I made the moon surface.

soaking the tissue in the glue made it pliable and I put it on the card tube and moved it around to make the surface wrinkled and moon like. I also made some craters by gluing rings of tissue paper on the tube and covering it with more tissue.

Once the glue is dry the moon surface is ready for painting.

Step 9: Painting.

Now time to paint! I painted the back disc black with little white dots to look like stars. The box was painted a dark blue with thick paint to give it a texture.

The moon surface was painted white and the brushed greys and blacks to highlight the bumps and craters and texture of the moon.

The handle to drive the automata which is a shooting star was painted white and light yellow.

The rover and satellite were painted grey and had details of other colours done with pen and coloured paints.

Step 10: Assembly

When all the paint has dried it’s time to assemble.

The satellite can be glued to the satellite wire.

The wire that makes the rover move is also the centre axle of the rover. So the rover is held in place by gluing the middle wheel on the end of the wire so the rover can rock back and forth as it goes over all the bumps.

screw the side panels on and make sure everything is working as you need it to.