Edmund Dohnert has always had some uncertainty about whether he’s an artist or an engineer. We don’t really care. His works are just plain cool. And yes, they are both art and engineering. Just plain fun to look at and watch.

For instance, the Victor Rat Trap No. 1 pictured above has a knight repeatedly attacking an evil jester in order to save He-Man’s life. The only power source is a simple rat trap on a wooden base. The rat trap’s spring can be pulled all the way back and held, thanks to a cord and roller arrangement attached to a crank shaft.

This shaft is connected to a gearbox which connects to the vertical shaft on which the knight is perched. When the wound-up spring is released, the knight’s shaft rotates. His metal ball on a cord swings out and wraps itself around the Jester’s rod. When the ball finishes wrapping around, it unwinds itself, and the entire process repeats. All this while the rat trap spring is slowly unwinding, a process that takes over 12 minutes to complete. He-Man’s head survives.

Check out more of Edmund’s work by clicking on the link below.

[Mechanicalcuriosities]