Ernie Fosselius's amazing hand-whittled automata

Ernie
Ernie Fosselius is perhaps best known as the creator of the brilliant DIY Star Wars spoof Hardware Wars. We were delighted to find out that Ernie happens to live a stone's throw from the MAKE: compound in Sebastopol, CA. These days, he whittles incredible hand-cranked automata out of wood. He used to exhibit them in a big V8 trailer but now the Mechalodeon is traveling lighter and greener in a home-built pedal powered vehicle complete with a crank organ on the front. We visited his workshop recently and MAKE: media maker Bre Pettis put together a wonderful short video of Ernie talking about his magical creations. (Photo from Mark F.'s Ernie Fosselius set on Flickr.)

Link

UPDATE: Thanks to Kim Scarborough for reminding me that Ernie also created the pinball/counting cartoons from Sesame Street! Link to Ernie's Wikipedia bio, Link to YouTube video of "The Number 6"