Motion artist Derek Hugger has created “Colibri“, a breathtaking hand-cranked kinetic sculpture that painstakingly captures the delicate motions of a hummingbird as it feeds at a flower.
Every element of motion has been completely mechanized, from the beating wings to the flaring tail. Intricate systems of linkages and cams bring the sculpture to life with a continuous flow of meticulously timed articulations. As each mechanism has been linked to the next, Colibri cycles through its complete range of motions by the simple turn of a crank.This project is my eighth woodworking design project and is by far the most complex project I’ve done so far. From start to finish, Colibri took me about 700 hours.
