The way things were
Matilda'a father had worked his life in the coal mine so she was no stranger to a bit of hard labour. As a child she'd played at being a miner, smashing rocks in the back yard of their terraced house with a small hammer.
Today she had a much bigger hammer. She'd already supported up the archways with props and removed the old fashioned glass thermometer, so it was just a case of removing the front wall. A bit of persuasion with a sledge hammer and the front wall was turned to a pile of rubble. As she stared at the burnt out shell of a house she thought back to how it was when they first moved into their woodland cottage.
The cottage was a strange design with two arches at the front. A long beam spanned the house and pivoted in the middle. The beam was linked to a twisted shank of cord made from "cat gut" although they had been assured that no cats had been harmed in it's making. The cord had a strange property and acted as a simple hygrometer, when the air was damp the cord loosened and unwound moving the beam but when it was dry it twisted back up and moved the beam in the opposite direction.
Matilda had never liked that beam, it moved her in an arc and meant that there needed to be a large gap in the front wall.
A new beginning
Hans sketched out a rough schematic of the new control system, the power to the cottage was erratic so they did not want to rely on a main supply, the YUN did not have a regulator so Hans knew he was going to need some kind of circuitry for that and perhaps it would be good to charge the battery when there was power available. "Perhaps we could put some solar panels on the roof", he thought out loud. "One step at a time" suggested Matilda and Hans agreed.
A visit to the Town Faire
After her exertion, Matilda took a well deserved break and went with Hans to visit the town faire. Between the stalls and rides Matilda spotted something from her childhood. The town historical society had restored one of the old locomotives that pulled the coal wagons. She marvelled at how it's linkages converted the linear motion of the pistons into rotary motion for the wheel. When she got home she sketched out a mechanism for connecting up the servo to the movement in and out of the house.
Next Enchanted Objects Design Challenge - Matilda is not happy
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