Mechanical Animator

building animated Christmas window displays

I started in the early summer of 2013 working on animated window displays as part of Spaeth Design. I worked on the 2013 Animated Holiday Window Displays for Saks Fifth Avenue, Lord and Taylor, and Bloomingdales in New York City. I also worked for most of the 2014 season, creating mechanisms for Lord and Taylor, Saks Fifth Avenue, and Bloomingdales

My duties included precise metal fabrication and mechanical assembly construction, both AC and DC electrical motor wiring, pneumatic valve setup, and microcontroller programming. This is a selection of in-process images.

A set of pneumatic slides prepared for a dropping garland animation.

A crank arm, lever, and cart which has reciprocating motion. The final cart was 12ft in length but moved just 22 inches.

Same Assemby as the 22in crank arm, which moves the larger cart.

Before all the prints were complete, the animations were arranged to ensure everything fit and to sequence the order of the animations. This included building a master control box for client demonstrations

These show some images of finalized windows after everything (painting, animation, carpentry, props) have all be installed

Lord and Taylor 2013

Saks Fifth Avenue 2013