Kinetic project proposal

 I will be creating two sets of boxes that will each have a camshaft. There will be four flat followers in each that when the motors are activated by button press by the viewer, will bloom a paper fan one by one from each of the slides. The boxes will be placed in a staircase formation. If all goes well with these two boxes, I may create more for the final piece.

 

 

An example of a proof of concept that I worked on for last class

I was inspired to create this piece after seeing Reuben Margolin's mechanical caterpillars as well as his many waves. I became intrigued by the idea of mechanical objects creating the same motions of the natural world.

Reuben Margolin's Magic Wave via his youtube channel.

The movement of the camshaft with many cams became analogous to the flow of ocean waves to me. To create the look of spraying water, I was inspired by the look of theatrical sets that uses simple objects and shapes to imply the movement of the ocean. I decided to use the style of Japanese paper fans as this simple object as they have always made me think of ocean waves.

I will be building this project out of plywood and paper for the main visual component, as well as for the camshafts. For the movement, I will be using DC motors that will be triggered by a button and the time set by the Arduino. I will need to create the pieces of the object in Rhino, so I will be able to use the laser cutter to manufacturer the object for assembly. I will also be custom fabricating a PCB for the circuit.

There will be updates on this project concerning the Arduino code and circuit board once I can talk to Bryan in class, as I was having trouble with them as per my previous post concerning motors.