Courtesy Email Automaton is Essentially a Hand-Cranked Wonder of Pointless Politeness

Italian artist Amedeo Capelli, also known as Stoccafisso Design, is one of the fortunate few who spends his days whittling down blocks of wood to build mechanical toys. One of his most recent creations, the courtesy email automaton, is a true show stopper.

At the bottom, there is a wooden frame that can carry a standard laptop. On top of everything, there’s a jumble of cams, levers, wires, and wooden fingers all waiting to go to work. A large crank handle extends out on the side, asking to be spun. Which, it turns out, is precisely what you should do. Turn the handle, and the entire contraption leaps into motion.

Each rotation of the handle causes the cams to revolve in their own specific sequence. They cause the levers to move in a specific order, and a network of small cables connects them to a bank of articulated wooden fingers hovering over the keyboard keys itself. As the whole thing cycles through, the fingers come down one by one, clacking at the keys with a lovely steady cadence, letters, spaces, shifts, returns, and so on.



Capelli built the entire thing from the ground up, carefully cutting each cam profile by hand to ensure that the correct keys are touched at the appropriate times. He had to get the time exactly right; if it was off by a fraction, it would be nonsense rather than a perfectly pleasant statement. The fingers are high enough above the keys to prevent inadvertent pressing; they only drop down to type when the lever is triggered.

There is no electricity or motors powering the thing. Just plain simple mechanical energy from the crank being passed through the gears to create the item type. The outcome is a fascinating contrast between traditional automaton craftsmanship and modern keyboard. Who wouldn’t want to create something simply for the sake of being charming and clever?
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