Computer graphic animations, analysis and the internet publication relating to Edo era's KARAKURI dolls and modern educational mechanism models

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The KARAKURI dolls, which were in Japan in the Edo era before the Meiji era when modern machine technology was imported from European and American developed nations, perform complicated movements only by mechanical mechanism. The machine mechanisms realizing those movements are included in the modern machine technology. Machine mechanisms of KARAKURI dolls are illustrated in the Edo era machine books "KARAKURI-ZUI" and "KARAKURI-KINMOU-KAGAMIKUSA". However, the drawn diagrams are too partial and are hard to understand intuitively. Because a tea-serving doll includes various machine mechanisms, authors made mechanism diagrams about each movement of it in this study, and the diagrams can be easily understood to anyone. Movements of a doll are a mechanism of a start and a stop, a mechanism of foot's moving back and forth, a mechanism in which a doll bows, a mechanism of a turn, and an escapement. And the animations also were made by authors. Those animations were put on a website of The Kyoto University Museum. The machine technology in the Edo era was inspected by comparing those and Reuleaux educational models which show the modern machine technology. In addition, authors compared and inspected the machine elements which are included in a KARAKUIRI doll and Reuleaux models. The authors also made animations about a DANGAERI doll and performed similar things. From the above-mentioned examination, it made clear that the mechanical technology in the KARAKURI was not applied to industry widely in Japan because there was not the technology to be able to cut metal precisely, even though the level of the machine mechanism of KARAKURI in Edo era using the wood, the thread and a whisker of whale was high.