When it comes to giant mechanical animals, is there any creature that can possibly present more of a challenge than the giant squid? Barry Crawford was up to the challenge though, and frankly he’s blown me away with his results.

Hand fabricating 99% of this creature has taken a considerable amount of time and effort, actually over 2,000 hours. You might be tricked into thinking that it was constructed from reclaimed materials due to the bottle caps and vegetable strainers that were used for aesthetic aspects. However, due to the mechanical complexity, most of the parts had to be purpose built by hand.

As you can see, the motion is reacting to the crowd’s actions. On the top of each of the fence posts there is a crank that you can spin. This isn’t mechanically moving the items, but rather sending a signal to an Arduino that is then translated into a speed to rotate motors which in turn rotate a pipe hidden within the tentacles. Fancy hinges allow the structure of the tentacle to slide and twist in fantastic ways.

I was lucky enough to witness this incredible sculpture at Maker Faire Bay Area 2016.

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