Wonderful automaton based on idea by Claude Shannon

 Onoff 1

Information theory pioneer Claude Shannon was a master toy maker. (See Boing Boing entries about his juggling robots here).

Here's a box someone built based on Shannon's idea. When you push a red knob on the box, the lid opens and a hand comes out and pulls the knob, causing the lid to close. There's a video of the box in action on the site.

Link (thanks, TK!)