Music Box Kinetic Sculpture

A timeless classic - a mechanical music box with dancing figurines.

This build was a very fun experiment into bringing the organic motion of kinetic sculptures to minifigs.  At the heart of the music box is a LEGO Technic gear and linkage system that ultimately gives our characters their fluid ability to dance.  Inspired by the functions of an orrery (a mechanical model of the solar system where you can have points of rotation rotating about other points of rotation), this model achieves three points of rotation: our couple moving about the centre of the room; our couple turning about our gentleman figure; and our female figure performing a "swing-out", spinning away and then back towards the gentleman.  These motions were heavily inspired by the core movements seen in swing dancing.

The mechanism was really fun to work on, and I'm very proud of the natural movements I was able to achieve!