Creating an automaton inspired by the book “The Invention of Hugo Cabret"

Fourth grade gifted students at Colonial Elementary School recently used cardboard and styrofoam to each make an automaton inspired by the book The Invention of Hugo Cabret by Brian Selznick. In the book, the automaton was a mechanical man that Hugo was trying to repair. 

Click here for a video of several of the automata in action!

For class, Ethan Perazzelli created an automaton where a cop and robber were on a chase and took turns popping out of the top of his machine. “I wanted to make something that goes up and down, but I didn’t think that was complicated enough, so I made two that went at different times,” he said. 

Trip Leonard’s automaton was called “Harry Potter the Storm Chaser” and included a Harry Potter action figure, an SUV, and a spinning tornado. “My favorite thing was adding stuff to make it look cooler,” he said. 

Lucy Raitta based her creation on old automatons she saw on the boardwalk at the shore. She created a scene from Aladdin with a small stage with a moveable curtain and flying carpet, “I just want to put it out there that there was a lot of trial and error, and this was a big challenge.”

While the automaton project helped bring the book to life, Lucy’s struggle represented another concept the students are learning in their gifted class.

“We’ve been talking about ‘failing boldly’ — and understanding how great failures lead to great success,” said teacher Steph Kundtz. “We’ve been celebrating our failures, so that we can feel comfortable in our failure and really celebrate those moments when we finally do succeed.”  

Inspired by a ride at Hershey Park, Oliver Cole made an automaton of a train traveling in a circle on a track. “My greatest failure was that the cam kept tilting, so my train kept tilting,” said Oliver as he demonstrated his machine. “It still tilts a little bit, but before we added metal weights, it tilted even more.”  

Many of the students had issues with the mechanics of making their automatons move and found success in trying different methods or completely changing their original ideas. Others were happy for small victories. While Ethan’s biggest failure was that the cop and robber didn’t move as well as he had hoped, he said, “My biggest success was when I finally found the glue gun.” 

Touted as part novel and part picture book, The Invention of Hugo Cabret has more than 500 pages and is split into two parts. This project marked the end of Part 1. 

Click here for a video of several of the automata in action!