Snake charmer, a LEGO automaton

As a kid I used to think this was how magicians did the standing rope trick. I was wrong of course, but I’ve always wondered if the extending mechanism I imagined would work. A charmed snake seemed like the perfect vehicle to finally try it. I couldn’t show much of the inner workings without taking it all apart again just when it had it perfectly tuned, but there’s three sets of driven rubber wheels guiding the snake, a rather nifty flywheel variation to wind and unwind it, and the charmer’s upper body an