We worked with the artist Sophie Huckfield to let her automate the operation of her CNC puppet machine Break the Frame.

Adding limit switches meant we could then write some software for it to automatically home (to work out the location of the puppet) and then it can run through a pre-defined set of movements.

The movements are defined in a custom gcode (the encoding used by most CNC machines) file which Sophie can easily update to change the actions of the puppet.

When it reaches the end of the movement file the software pauses momentarily, and then starts again from the beginning. That will let Sophie display the artwork in galleries, letting it run unattended.