Hamster-powered strandbeest walker

The mad genius at Crafbuartworks created a miniature, hamster-powered strandbeest walker. The walker is hamstered by the intrepid Princess, who is a champ.

The hamster powered? that's just stupid, which is the exact reason why I did it. It's different, hasn't been done before, yet it's in so many what's-under-the-hood jokes. It also had a high likelyhood of working, so I had to attempt it. Only problem: I don't have a hamster, I don't want a hamster for a pet, and I don't know what sort of power and weight a little critter like that has. All I know is that I've seen them go ballistic on the hamster wheel, and so they must have great weight to power ratio.

I quickly removed the gearing and windmill, cut some plastic and mounted a hamster ball to this contraption. I used ball bearings on the hamster ball axels, and mecanno sprockets/chain to transfer the power from the hamster ball to the main crank. I did some initial testing with my son's motorized train inside of the hamster ball, so I had fair confidence on the gear ratio needed for it to work.

Then my sister in law (who runs a great craft blog, Crafty Carnival) came to the rescue, and was able to borrow one of her friend's pet hamster. Enter Princess the Hamster. Princess is a tiny little thing, much smaller than what I had imagined and prepared for. I was afriad that her weight wouldn't be enough to get the ball going. But luckily it all worked out great, and test pilot Princess had no problems getting the strandbeest up to speed.

Hamster Powered Walker (via Making Light)

• [seyo]

  LOVE IT. The best part is when it walks by the cat like a mecha.

• [Robert]

  No, cats really are not easily impressed.

  I once had a mouse that escaped from his cage, so I stuck an exercise wheel in the area, and an hour later, there he was, wheeling.

• [Jack]

  The circle is now complete. When I left you, I was but the learner; now I am the hamster.

• [krispyD]

  THIS. This video is why the internet was invented. Thank you Al Gore.

• [wavechild]

  Step #1 in hamsters taking over the world.

• [Anonymous]

  And once the hamster gets out of the walker, she hops straight back on the wheel. Ru, run, run.

• [Mike]

  The cat in this video says “I refuse to believe what my eyes are seeing. Also time for nap.”

• [skeptacally]

  i get the feeling that if those pesky humans left the room, kitty would perform an her own hamster trick.

• [candycritic]

  Yet another reason to go into hamster farming.

  • [abstract_reg]

    Woah! Great concept! We could use animal power to help us get around. Forget oil. Why didn’t we think of this before?

    • [Anonymous]

      Forget oil, use animal power? You should read The Windup Girl by Paolo Bacigalupi. Don’t get stomped by the megodonts.

• [[e-mail]]

  the hamster is a dwarf hamster which is half the size of a full hamster

• [Anonymous]

  As cool as the walker is, it seems less efficient than the ball by itself

• [2k]

  Wide-eyed cat looks at bag of catnip, shakes head in bewilderment and throws it in the trash.

• [The Hamster King]

  Excellent … excellent … .

  • [querent]

    I lolled mightily.

• [branko]

  Dutch artist Tinkebell got cleared last week of charges of animal abuse after she had let hamsters run around in balls like that:

  http://www.rnw.nl/english/bulletin/artist-cleared-abusing-hamsters

• [MrSmirnov]

  clearly inspired by Theo Jansen: http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/eng/theo_jansen_creates_new_creatures.html

• [Anonymous]

  i for one welcome our hamster overlords

• [bklynchris]

  Can he please make a time machine so that I can go back in time and get parents like him? So then maybe I could be a parent like him?

• [AdrenalineSleep]

  YES! +1K internets to Crafbuartworks!!!!! So effin’ awesome :-D

• [Mark Dow]

  The human experiment is progressing well. A self-contained motive device is now functional.

• [quitterjunior]

  1. Make people-sized
  2. ??????
  3. Profit!

• [dagfooyo]

  This opens up a whole new subgenre… hamsterpunk.