The magic balls will represent lungs in my thesis dress and my final for Mechanisms.

Hanging around an individual’s neck, the lungs will expand and contract matching the actual breathing pattern of the wearer.

Using the umbrella mechanism and a rack and pinion gear, the sides of the origami ball will be pushed out when the gear moves down the rack. The runner of the umbrella which is holds the stretchers will be attached to the gear.

Issues:

1. Weight. Ideally the device should be light so that it isn’t oppressively heavy for the neck.

2. Quantity. This is a scalable project. Starting with one and moving on to as many as 4.

Schedule:

4.11 Order parts (after talking to Dustyn)
4.11 – 4.15 Fold the balls
4.16 – 4.25 Construction

Barnes and Noble was where I ended up doing my research and the two books that I bought are
Gallop by Rufus Butler Seder and Fortune Cookies by Albert Bitterman and Chris Raschka.

What I like about both books are their simple execution style.

Gallop! uses a pull tab to activate the scanimation. As far as I understand, scanimation is called ‘picket fence’ animation. It is an animation technique that is based on persistence of vision and combines parallax perception with moire-line type patterns to create the illusion of fluid motion.

Fortune Cookies is a very sweet story that uses a pull tab to reveal the fortunes from the cookie. The book is a great example of simplicity working with content.

I didn’t buy, but I also enjoyed flipping through Birthday Bugs: A Pop-up Party and We’re Going on a Bear Hunt.

Birthday Bugs has a present on every page. The reader gets to untie, open and unwrap the gifts and reveal the bugs within.

We’re Going On a Bear Hunt is a classic story that got reinvented with pop-ups, flaps to lift, tabs to pull, and sound effects!

And Patrick Proctor just put me on to this amazing pop up book – Mommy? by Maurice Sendak!

Below are a selection of pieces that I liked. I think I have settled on doing a paper sculpture of some sort.

Being so inspired by some of the automaton work I found online, I decided to try to build a Vertical Wind Turbine that I found on www.clockworkrobot.com

The next step is to attach a motor and use the energy!

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And after doing a bit of research I have found a couple of new fascinations – kinetic paper sculptures!

A video of a solar powered automaton:

As well as the solar powered kinetic horse:

These inspired me to build a vertical wind turbine for my mechanisms class that I would like to attach a motor to.

I’m also playing around with the pages of the book in the spine similar to the work of Carli Hyland.

Matt Shilan’s kirigami style paper sculpture thesis work and more:

paper recycled inspired jewelry: http://emmaware.co.uk/page3.htm

Paper sculptures:

Some more kirigami playing with light:

Oh, and I started an inspiration blog.

http://nowthatmylifesintechnicolor.tumblr.com/

We might not have been victorious today, but we have learned some key lessons for 2.0.

Our strategies for V1.0:
1. Increased range. We removed the front of the mouse trap to increase the revolution of the trap shutting. Instead of the trap snapping 180 degrees it is snapping about 200 degrees
2. The wheels. The ITP floor is rough and bumpy, we wanted some tough wheels that would provide some good friction.
3. The arm. The long arm was supposed to give us a little extra umph. But, it may have made us a bit slower…

Improvements for next time around:
1. Less bulky. More aerodynamic. This version is top heavy and boxy, not giving it the best advantage.
2. Bigger wheels. The wheels and axle are too small.
3. Tighter. Following with the need for the car to be more aerodynamic, the axle and the coverings need to be tighter, we are losing a significant amount of energy to loose bearings.
4. Don’t have Hana wind her up.

The movie that Erik put together of our testing and some glamour shots.

Pick one impressive machine/mechanism you consider art, and one you consider practical/functional. They don’t have to be electromechanical, but they have to move. Post pictures/videos on your blog and your response to the pieces. Be ready to share with the class.

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I have been doing some research on pneumatics for my thesis and I came across Chico MacMurtrie’s art work via a thesis peer, Morgen Fleisig!

Chico MacMurtrie was born in New Mexico in 1961. And formed Amorphic Robot Works in 1992.

He describes his vision, “The work is an ongoing endeavor to uncover the primacy of movement and sound. Each machine is inspired or influenced, both, by modern society, and what I physically experience and sense. The whole of this input informs my ideas and work.”

I am totally drawn to his work, mostly his exploration into inflatables. In my thesis I am working with an inflatable pair of lungs that will visualize the breath of the wearer and I am hoping to study what he did with the 16 birds project.

16 birds:

http://amorphicrobotworks.org/works/birds/index.htm

16 birds

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Stapler. Let’s file that under one of the many underapprectiated functional mechanisms of the 20th century. Apparently the first known stapler was a handmade one for Louis the XV.

Stapler is basically an arrangement of springs – coil and leaf springs. If I understand it correctly, the coil spring feeds the staples along the magazine and the leaf spring returns the stapler to it’s original position.

But while the stapler is great for everything from interoffice memos to local show announcements, surgical staplers are revolutionary and changed the game (according to my boyfriend, not as much as electro cautery…) Surgeons use surgical staplers in place of sutures to close the skin.

It is shaped differently from the standard paper stapler. Wikipedia’s description of it’s function: “Pressing the stapler into the skin and applying pressure onto the handle bends the staple through the skin and into the fascia, until the two ends almost meet in the middle to form a rectangle.

Staplers are commonly used intra-operatively during bowel resections in colorectal surgery. Often these staplers have an integral knife which, as the staples deploy, cuts through the bowel and maintains the aseptic field. The staples, made from surgical steel, are typically supplied in disposable sterilized cartridges.”