The Final Result

Its been awhile since I've been on here with the holidays and all, but I have been doing some work on this. I have actually finished. I went through many experiments before I got it, however.

Basically, I had to give up on the popsicle stick gears. It was just to0 wonky. If you're off by a fraction then your gears won't mesh and the whole thing locks up. I searched and searched but could not find any way of getting proper gears at a reasonable price short of cutting them out of wood myself. That is impossible under the circumstances so that wasn't gonna do me any good.

Finally, God smiled on me. When I went to the thrift store I saw a giant bucket of beautiful plastic gears for $5! It was a 150 piece building toy called Gears, Gears, Gears, and that's exactly what is was. All kinds of interlocking gears and connectors, even a crank handle. Hallelujah!

I rushed home and decided I better start over with the back part. I got some MDF board for 50 cents at Home depot and I was ready to go. I attached the gears with screws and used teeny tiny bolts to connect the sticks. Here is the result: