Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest
Theo Jansen is a Dutch artist who, for the last couple of decades, has been building increasingly elaborate kinetic sculptures that he calls strandbeesten (beach-animals). Constructed out of plastic tubing, these wind-powered mechanisms walk sideways on legs built from simple mechanical linkages.
His early models, such as the one illustrated in the video below right, could only walk downwind, driven by rigid sails. Later models have wing-like sails that provide propulsion regardless of the wind direction. Still later models use the sails to store compressed air that continues to drive the mechanism during short lulls in the wind.
( The key to the construction of the beasts is Jansen’s linkage )
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