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Lurking deep the impenetrable waters of Loch Ness in bonny Scotland lives the mysterious Loch Ness Monster; Nessie, as she is known to her friends. Recreated here is a mechanical version of that fabled beast. Turn the handle and the humps rock and the head and tail bob all powered, of course, via a scotch yoke.

Download the parts and follow along with the illustrated instruction to make your very own mythical beast!

Print out the pages onto thin card (230 micron / 67lb) Score along the dotted and dashed lines before carefully cutting out the pieces.

Crpto-zooological paper project!

Making the Slider.

Glue the teeth to the grey areas on the slider. Be as accurate as possible with this to ensure that the rack and pinion works well.

Fold round the slider and glue it together. A chopstick is useful for pressing down the glued edges.

Glue the two yoke sides into place as shown

Glue the two cam ends into place using he grey areas for alignment.

Making the Drive Wheel.

Assemble the drive pin by folding round and gluing the main square section tube then rolling round the long tab and gluing it into place.

Assemble the square sectioned drive shaft. Fit the drive shaft and drive pin into the drive wheel.

Fold the drive wheel in half and glue it together to make double thickness card. Once the glue is dry carefully cut out the circle.

Assembling the handle.

Make the handle in three steps. Fold round and glue the two square section tubes. Fold one tube into the other and glue at ninety degrees. Roll round the long tab and glue it down.

Putting Together the Box.

Glue the two box stiffeners up the height of the box so that they are almost, but not quite, touching the centre hole. Repeat this process with the other box side. The box stiffeners give rigidity to the box.

Glue the two box halves together as accurately as possible. Glue on the two ends to close the box.

Fold up and make the two slide holders as shown.

Glue the two slide holders to ends of the box. Thread the drive shaft through the holes in the box.

Secure the drive shaft into place with the washer. It should still be free to turn.

Glue the handle to the drive shaft.

Drop the slide over the drive pin and into the slide holders. Turn the handle to ensure that the slide moves back and forth freely.

Assembling the Hump Wheels

Glue the teeth to the grey areas on the short wheel section. Be as accurate as possible.

Join the two wheel sections together. Line them up with a ruler to ensure that they are straight.

Glue the wheel strip to the wheel sides starting to the side of the first tab and working your way round a few tabs as a time.

Glue the axle pieces into place.

Thread the axle through the square hole and out approx 4mm through the other side then glue it into place.

Turn the main handle on the front of the box until the drive pin is at the bottom of its travel and the slide is centred.

Fit the two hump wheels into their holes so that they mesh with the rack and are lined up straight as shown. Secure them with washers on the other side of the box making sure that they are still free to rock back and forth.

Making the Head.

The two horns are made from tightly rolled tubes of paper. Roll the main body of the horns and glue it down. Keep the bottom flat so that the top has a slight curve.

Roll the rest of the long tab round and glue it down to make a step.

Fit the two horns up through the two holes in the head and glue them into place.

Assemble the neck and glue the head into place

The Cam Followers

In keeping with the Scottish theme I was originally going to use a Watt linkages to move the head and tail.(The Watt linkage was invented by famous Scotsman James Watt.) In the end I decided that the model was already quite complex and these linkages would only add yet more complexity. Perhaps someone would like to give it a try?

The head and tail of this project are powered by cams. Assemble the cam linkages by folding the stiffeners into the middle as shown.

Fold round and glue together the linkage as shown.

The cam follower is a semi-circular tube. roll the card round a pencil to curve it gently before gluing the part together as shown.

Glue the cam follower linkage to the grey area on the end of the box as shown so that the cam follower rests on the cam surface.

Fold of the head and tail support and glue them to make double thickness card. Once the glue is dry cut away the waste pieces.

Glue the head and fail supports to the cam follower linkages as shown then glue the head and tail into place.

Finish off the project by gluing the two pieces of ripply Loch Ness into place. Turn the handle and Nessie will come to life! The scotch yoke will move the slider back and forth, the rack and pinion will rotate the humps and the cam s will move the head and tail up and down.

Rear view showing the mechanism. (Always the best bit in my opinion :-)

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If you've been following along on Instagram and Twitter you'll have seen that I've completed the parts design for the Nessie project!

Everything works very smoothly including the all importang Scotch Yoke around which the whole conceit is based. Turn the handle and the humps rock back and forth powered by the rack and pinion. The head and tail bob up and down in synchrony powered by cam surfaces at the ends of the rack.

I've even got as far as designing my own tartan to decorate the box!

Colour next.

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Steven A has uploaded this video of his modified Paper Pencil. He has modified it to include the inside of a ball point pen so that it actually writes. Nice work Steven, thanks for sharing!

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Add to Cart to download this kit for free !

Download, print out and make your own Android robot. This poseable robot is available for everyone to download for free.

The Android robot is the logo of Google's Android mobile device operating system.

This Android robot is modified from work created and shared by Google and used according to terms described in the Creative Commons 3.0 Attribution License.

The legs bend back and forth.	The arms bend with two degrees of freedom	The head rotates.

Download the parts. Print out the pages onto four sheets of thin card (230 micron / 67lb) Score along the dotted and dashed lines. Carefully cut out the holes then cut out the pieces.

Roll round the shoulder tube so that the edge lines up with grey line arrowed in the top picture. Glue the tube down making sure that the edge is accurately lined up with the grey line along its full length.

Glue the two halves of the body together then thread the shoulder tube into place. Don't glue the shoulder tube yet.

Fold up and slick together the head.

Both antennae are made in the same way. Roll round the main body of the piece into a tight tube. Glue it into place.

Roll round the long tab and glue it down to complete the antennae

Fit the antennae up through the holes in the head and glue them into place.

The antennae in place.

Glue the neck plate to the head base so that the ends of the the tabs are lined up with the sides of the head base.

Glue the head base into the head as shown.

Fit the body top to the five tabs on the head so that it is free to rotate.

Glue the large disk to the tabs making sure that the head can rotate freely.

Glue the head to to the top of the body.

Fold over and glue down the leg support to make double thickness card. Once the glue is dry carefully cut out the hole and cut off the two curved sides as shown. Repeat this process with the other leg support.

Glue the two leg supports to the body base so that they are lined up with the edge of the hole and with the edges of the body base. Notice that the two tabs running across the hole in the base are folded up at ninety degrees. These add rigidity to the base.

Fold round and glue together the two legs to make rectangular boxes. Glue the leg joiner to one of the legs as shown here.

Glue the second leg into place. Make sure that the two legs are lined up with each other by standing them on a flat surface.

Fit the legs into the hole in the body base. Fit the tabs through the holes in the leg supports.

Fix the tabs with the medium circular disks. Make sure that the legs are free to move back and forth.

Fit the body base to the body. Make sure that the legs are facing the correct direction in relation to the shoulders.

Making the arm joints: Glue one of the long thin strips to the inner grey ring. Roll it round and glue it down.

The centre strip is the one that rotates. Don't glue it down. Line up the end of the strip with the step in the shoulder tube. Roll it round, then glue the end of the strip onto the strip itself making sure that it is free to rotate.

Secure the rotating ring with the final fixed ring.

Glue the tab strip to the centre rotating ring.

Thread the shoulder into place on the tabs. Glue the small circle to the tabs making sure that the shoulder is free to move up and down. Repeat this process on the other side.

Fold up and glue together the two arms.

One the glue is dry your Android robot is complete!

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You may have spotted the new advert in the top right of the website. I've been a fan of David Landis' Desktop Gremlins for almost as long as they been in existence. Have a look at the site - I'm sure you'll enjoy them too. I love the simple elegance of the design and the skill of David's illustration.

Now David is planning a Desktop Gremlins book. If enough people join his Kickstarter campaign he'll be producing this lavishly illustrated, sumptuously printed 96 page book with twenty Desktop Gremlins for you to cut out and make.

He has set his funding goal for this campaign at the absolute minimum cost that covers professional printing, bonus reward tier manufacturing, Kickstarter & Amazon Payments fees, and mailing of all the final orders. This will allow him to sell a product at local book stores, book fairs and conferences. Proceeds raised from that will allow him to re-design www.DesktopGremlins.com into a sparkling-new website that will offer more free content then ever before as well as future books.

To be produced the book needs to reach its pledge goal by 18th November. I've made my pledge, hurry along to the Kickstarter site and help support this fantastic project!

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Here's a question for you...

I put together this poseable paper character featuring the Android phone robot.

It has flexible legs...

Poseable arms...

...and a rotating head.

The question is, does anyone know about the legality of releasing it as a download? I was planning for it to be a freebie, available to anyone but I don't want to find myself up against the might of the Google creative rights department. Any ideas?

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I'm adding horns to the Nessie project. Horns are no problem, just a tightly rolled tube of paper. Getting then to stay in position without leaning to one side, not so good. Up until now when I've needed a part like this I have made a hole in the head and pushed the part through then secured it with a few blobs of glue on the inside. Neither satisfactory or elegant I'm sure you'll agree. 

So here's the new idea.  

Starting with a piece like this. 

The height above the step corner is the length of the horn. The top edge of the main body of the part curves downwards slightly to give the end of the horn a slight curve.

Roll the the main body of the piece tightly and glue it down to form the horn. Notice the shaped end.

Roll the rest of the tab round and glue it down. See how it makes a flat step on the end of the piece.

Now simply push the horns up through circular holes cut in the head. (I used 4mm diameter holes in this case.

Hows that!? Solidly places, perpendicular horns. Sweet.

I could finish of the ends at this point with a further strip round the top of the horns to make a giraffe type club end.

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£2.50

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See the Membership page for more details.

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Here's a quick, fun paper project for you to download and make. Members can download the paper pencil for free, non members can add it to the their cart for £2.50

Print out the parts onto thin card (230gsm / 67lb)

Score along the dotted lines then carefully cut out the parts.

Before you assemble the point of the pencil, score along the short lines between the scalloped grey areas and fold them slightly. Once the cone is rolled round and glued this will make a hexagonal shape at the end of the cone so that it matches with the pencil body.

Roll round the cone and glue it together. Make sure the two edges are lined up with each other.

Space the three pencil inners along the length of the pencil and glue down three of the tabs on each. The inner at the front of the pencil should be about 12mm from the end of the pencil to allow room for the cone to be fitted shortly.

Fold round and glue closed the pencil body. Make sure that it is straight and square.

Glue the cone into place. Do this one tab at a time. A coffee stirring stick is handing for applying glue.

If you are attaching the eraser, roll round and glue together the ferrule. Note that it is scored six times, half way across its depth. This makes one side a hexagon to match with the pencil body whilst the other side remains as a circle to house the eraser. Glue the ferrule to the pencil end so that the end of the pencil is roughly half way into the ferrule.

Glue together the two halves of the eraser.

Fit the eraser into the ferrule. 

Done! The paper pencil makes a surprisingly attractive desk ornament. I hope you enjoy it.

Steven A's Youtube Video

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Here's a quick mathematical diversion. How would you make a pencil from paper? How do you join the hexagonal section of the shaft to the cone of the point? As is often the case, geometry has the answer.

My starting point is to create a pencil with the dimensions shown top left. (all dimensions are in millimeters) 

First step, the cone. The radius of the base of the cone is 18mm, half of the 36mm diameter of the shaft.

I've picked an angle of 45° for the pencil point so the angle of the inside triangle is half of that, 22.5°

The length 'r' is 47mm, worked out using a sine.

The length all the way round the base of the cone 'C' is 113mm. Remember those numbers, we'll be coming back to them.

The cone is made from a pie slice of card mathematically know as a sector. The angle of the slice determines the angle of the finished cone. The wider the angle, the flatter and less pointed the cone.

A full circle with diameter 47mm has a circumference of 295mm. Using this and the length C from before it turns out the angle of pie that we need is 138°

Nearly there! Keep up at the back! 

We'll need some scallop shapes to link the hexagon tube with the cone. One more bit of calculation is needed to find the size of the scallop.

Time to wheel out Pythagoras giving a value for x of 15.61mm.

Using the same technique as before the new value for r, the distance from the point of the cone to the end of the scallops is 40.8mm

Having worked out all these dimensions I was delighted that the whole thing just slotted together nicely. I love the power of mathematics and geometry to work out how shapes fit together, its like having magic powers! Wooo!

I'll be putting up the parts as a download shortly. Nessie next.

Ooo look! Post 900!

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