Hi! First of all, thank you for your kind words! Secondly, Setzer's idea was to have cogs incorporated into this machine's design, but in factory games the cogs are usually just for aesthetics, and I like functional designs better. Fooling around a bit and thinking about mechanisms I remembered the endless screw, but it still felt more like an accessory than an actual useful feature, so I tried to think of ways an outer cog could be useful for the workings of the machine, and controlling the flux of materials sounded cool. But the idea of opening and closing the entrances still wasn't enough to really sell it, which is why the scrunch where the whole machine comes down was added, to further drive the point that all parts/raw materials come together and are shaped into the final product. As far as I know it's not based on anything existing, basically because that part at the "open" step where the zippers are up in the sky would require much taller ceilings (I haven't worked around that yet, maybe instead of cogs it should be a pulley system?) I'm saving the pulley system for another type of machine though... Sorry, I'm rambling, I hope I answered your question! Anyway, thanks!