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Digital Hoot-Nanny

There are other digital Hoot-Nannys on the Web. This is my version based on one I bought on eBay recently from FamilyAttic13 Collectibles. It is an animation of the machine in operation and I have not seen such an animation on the Web yet.

Mine came in the original box (or AN original box) complete with someone's artwork produced by the machine and instructions. Maybe I will get around to putting my version of the instructions one this site. They don't have the variety of samples as the others on the Web.

The others I know of:

This one has a photo of the newer model, the one I had as a child. It does not have the scribe wheel options that the older model had. This page has a links to instructions. That they are older or newer models is speculation on my part, I guess it's also possible that there were two models at the same time and I got the less expensive, less complicated version.

This one has a photo of the model I currently have. The page links to instructions for using the simulator and that page has a link to original instructions.

The current app has all the functionality of the physical Hoot-Nanny with the first row of settings corresponding to the adjustments which can be made to the Hoot-Nanny.

The second row of settings are relevant to operation of the Hoot-Nanny: the speed of the crank input; the number of points generated by each crank step; the color of the pen; the color and opacity of the paper.

The row below the second row of settings contains the controls. The 'Coloring Mode' button switches modes from the machine to just the paper. This has controls for coloring the the spaces enclosed by the trace pattern.

This is a work in progress and I have a long list of ideas for features to add to the simulation including many that the machine cannot do and would require a much more complicated machine to implement physically.

The instructions (PDF) that came with mine.

Here are the images of each page:
Page 1
Page 2
Page 3
Page 4
Page 5
Page 6

And here are the examples from page 2 of the Instructions:
Example 1
Example 2
Example 3
Example 4
Example 5
Example 6
Example 7
Example 8
Example 9
Example 10
Yes, example 3 and 6 are the same! Look at the instructions and you'll see that the steps are the same just in a different order.

I Discoverd a Property of the Hoot-Nanny

Today I discovered a Hoot-Nanny property and here's the demo image of that property:

Notice there are eight traces and the Hoot-Nanny has six fold radial symmetry! How can that be? Well, also notice that the traces are not all symmetrical.

Every 15° on the shift lever scale is 90° rotation of the upper scribe wheel (15*6 = 90) and if you make a compensating rotation of 90° of the peg on ONE of the wheels you get a similar pattern every 15° of the shift lever and that accounts for all eight traces thus: 

70s1DD
55s4DD
40s3DD
25s2DD
10s1DD
25v1DD
40u1DD
55t1DD
70s1DD repeats the top of the list.

Galery

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