Magnetic poetry-writer automaton

Today in London's Spitalfields Market, I was blown away by this wonderful little automaton, a tiny mechanical poet who writes graceful magnetic poetry when you spin a magnet beneath him. The proud maker -- who goes by Alefs in Wonderland -- let me shoot a little video of it (apologies for the crummy focus later in the shoot).

Miniature paper scribe

I write books. My latest is a YA science fiction novel called Homeland (it's the sequel to Little Brother). More books: Rapture of the Nerds (a novel, with Charlie Stross); With a Little Help (short stories); and The Great Big Beautiful Tomorrow (novella and nonfic). I speak all over the place and I tweet and tumble, too.

MORE: Art and Design • Gadgets • Happy Mutants • maker

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Takuan

gives me an ideer… magnetic fridge poetry words, tumbler, sorter/aligner, conveyor, critics….
Anonymous

He was probably having a hard time getting it in focus because he wasn’t using a lens with a shallow depth of focus, evindenced by the crisp focus of the gentleman holding up the purple papers, bearded face.
Anonymous

I’m not quite sure what I’m seeing here?
Anonymous

I only see ten seconds of video, and cannot see what is going on, is this a problem on my end?
Cornan

Whoops. Just posted as anonymous, but I was trying to quote Anon @ #9. I’m really not sure what it is I’m looking at here.
Anonymous

is it a tiny guy sitting at a desk writing?
nanuq

How it is with iambic pentameter?
x99901

seems like you may have uploaded the wrong take?
nosehat

Did you link the wrong video?

This was 10 seconds of what looked like setup.
Jake0748

I’m also seeing about 10 seconds of video and then it quits.
Anonymous

Often people move in too close with video cams. Most cams can’t focus close enough to resolve a tiny object like this one – yer better off staying farther away and keeping it sharp. Or learn how to use macro. I shoot video for a living, I’m sorry, I see this all the time and it just bugs the living daylights out of me. Can’t people see that the darn thing is blurry?
plainclothedman

There appears to be a little man sitting at a desk with a quill pen on top of the contraption…
x99901

i thought the previous video in mr. doctorow’s flickr stream was better.
KidDork

Is it the Atom, or Hank Pym? Because Pym is getting around these days…
Anonymous

i wanted that machine to be randomly pulling pieces of magnetic poetry and putting them together. I guess i had the wrong idea.