Looking for a unique gift for the mad engineer in your life? Try Mechanicards, a series of hand-crafted miniature sculptures that mesh kinetic art with greeting cards.
Created by Bradley Litwin, each limited-edition article features a moving mechanical design that can be operated via a hand-crank. Meant for use as display pieces that you can play with, the size makes them suitable for mailing as uncharacteristically fancy greeting cards.
Five Mechanicards are set to be available as part of the introductory series, all of them made primarily from cardboard, with occasional bits of wood, metal and plastic. Current designs consist of The Radial Engine (a cross-section demonstration of the crankshaft arrangement found in seven-cylinder radial engines), The Ambigulator (which creates an optical effect when you operate it), The Strum-U-Lator (a hand-cranked stringed instrument), Dragonfly Surprise (a nature scene where a dragonfly emerges from a stream) and The Yike-a-cycle (a unicycle traversing a circular path).
Only The Radial Engine is currently available to ship, with the rest of the roster coming in sometime during the next three months. Each piece comes signed and numbered, with complete instructions and recommendations.
The Mechanicards will be available both as finished kinetic sculptures or as DIY construction kits. Prices are $45 and $35, respectively.