As the little red canoe bobs, the gray tabby rows and the orange kitty strums his ukulele.

This machine, which is featured at the end of the above video, was built as an exercise using a simple wooden mechanism called “The Eccentric,” which I got from Raymond Levy’s book, “Making Mechanical Marvels in Wood.” The Eccentric creates a nice bobbing/rowing motion that reminded me of a boat on the water, and this machine is the result. The video also demonstrates three other basic wooden mechanisms from Levy’s book.

The cats are made of basswood, the canoe is some salvaged door trim, and the mechanism is salvaged maple and hobby plywood.