Swan is not a funny word.

Which is why this project was known as "the duck" - that's 'cause "duck" IS a funny word.

To see a larger image, slide-show version, click here, or on any of the images below.

Now, you're asking what does an 18 inch-long monster truck model have to do with Grand Opera? Plenty. In the opera Lohengrin, the story calls for a swan, a "magic swan" - remember, this is opera. For the Seattle Opera's production the director wanted to have a swan able to interact with the tenor. So the request for an animatronic swan was made.

With most of the projects I do I have to become a temporary expert. By that I mean I need to learn what I need to know to build the thing, how to phrase the questions I have, and figure out of whom to ask them.

I decided to start with an existing radio control model four-wheel drive truck, it has plenty of driving power, the steering linkage already exists, and with the suspension it has, it could carry a fair amount of weight.

The duck is 150% of life size - scaling it up accurately is not an easy task. Jeff did a wonderful job carving his friend here. I used the carved foam as a form to make a fiberglass duck shell. The shell, which housed the duck mechanics, also served as a base for the fake fur and feather skin.

Inside this duck, there isn't a thing I didn't modify in some fashion. For example, in this shot you can see I removed the wheels that came with the truck in favor of narrower wheels - better turning capability. I also glued sand to the wheel tread for better traction.

The wooden sticks are to support the fiberglass shell of the duck, and the silver tube between (with the black thing on the left end) them is part of the antenna motor which I adapted to help move the neck.

Here is the duck factory. You can see the duck neck in the left portion of the workbench.

Kitty built the fur and feather skin for the duck. She first covered the shell with masking tape, and then after cutting it along logical seam lines, unpeeled it to make a pattern to sew a fake fur jacket. If you were to join up the cut edges, the shape would be the same as the duck. The process would be similar to peeling an orange but keeping the peel in one piece.

For the wings she used bird feathers, and layered them - just like bird wings.

Here's the belly of the beast. After I made the fiberglass shell, I filled it full of holes to reduce the over-all weight. The long thin blue tubes are housings for push/pull cables. One end is connected to a motor and the other is fastened to some part of the shell that moves.

The achieving realistic neck movement was the biggest challenge. For inspiration I studied video of swans moving on land and in water. What I saw was the upper portion of the neck curled up and down, while the lower portion mostly rocked forward and back. The head, of course, could independently left, right, up and down.

The other motion the birds did often while in water was to adjust their wings, as if they were getting all their feathers to lay flat.

To achieve the desired neck curl, I used a car antenna motor to pull the neck down, but the motion back up was problematic. The neck would uncurl ungracefully.

A swan lifts it's head from the base of the neck on up. To get that motion I used a length of a carbon fiber fishing rod and mounted it along the back of the neck. Because of the fishing rods taper, it acted as a proportional spring - the thicker part, in the base of the neck, straightened out first - from the bottom up.

Through out the duck are small, yet very strong servo-motors. This one moves the head up and down.

I built the duck with ease of repair in mind. The neck fur unzips for access, and the back has a removable access panel to get to the batteries.

Here he is on stage, I'm not sure who the guy is, but he kept on hollering to the music.

The duck drove around in a puddle of water one inch deep, so all the electronics were incased in Tupperware. Two people were needed to operate him, one drove and the other did all the neck motions.

This was a fun and challenging project.