multiple hinges

I want to simulate the movements of the pictured object (for animation purposes only). It moves down, closes and grabs mud at the bottom of a river, then it moves back up.

... looks like 5 hinges will need to work simultaneously. Will this be insanely difficult? I don't mind a challenge, but don't want to get into something that is near impossible. I've been reading related threads and see that people are challenged by even one hinge and I have very little experience.

If anyone can point me to threads/information/scripts that might get me started that would be great. I appreciate any tips!

physical hinges are as yet (Havok 2 *might* change this {but more likely Havok 3 would})
not capable of being used to link more than two items together.

your choices are either child prim llSetPos and llSetRot or an invisible object animation using llSetLinkAlpha (or multiple scripts using llSetAlpha and a controller script.)

in either case it's not going to really grab anything, that'll have to script that too

L8r,
UU