Project 1 – Digital Surrealist Object
Post 1 – Inspiration for Object
I have always had an affinity for the marine world. Considering I run an electric boat team, I felt something like a ship-in-a-bottle would be a fun twist on the concept.
I am a huge consumer of Coca Cola products, and for me, the taste of soda is often reminiscent of home. As a result of my initial interest in ships in bottles, I felt a glass soda bottle would be a fun object to make an art piece out of.
Post 2 – Initial Concept Sketching
A lot of things in my life have been a bit backwards. Between moving between 5 different countries and choosing to be one of the only people in the US getting an undergraduate robotics degree, I have been kind of the odd-one-out in a lot of rooms. For that reason, I decided to invert the typical ship-in-a-bottle for a bottle-in-a-ship.
Post 3 – Making a Model of the Hull
I used a tool called Orca 3D to create an accurate sailboat hull. From there I moved it over to Onshape to add details and scale according to the bottle
After moving the file over from Orca, I added a keel and trim to add a bit more detail.
Post 4 – Printing and Assembling the Project
After 3D printing all components, I glued the project together with super glue and spray painted everything to grant a simpler, clean look, that emphasizes the Coke bottle.
Post 5 – Project Finished
Project Statement
In my field, specifically naval architecture and marine engineering, tradition is somewhat king. Many of the techniques used to design ships originate in the 1700s, which is a far cry from the technology and engineering knowledge used today. In pairing this with a robotics background, I often find myself fighting some of the tradition associated with my career. I felt a symbolic representation of marine engineering was the classic model ship in a bottle, and it would be interesting to represent my internal conflicts with a twist on this idea. Following this logic, I felt a cool way to manifest this idea was the use of a professional grade boat design software, Orca 3D, to make a hull that would be used for something with none of the somewhat high-brow applications those tools most often see. As I delved further into how the bottle could be used, I thought about what bottle could be representative of my background. For me, Coca-Cola is closely tied to home, being something readily available everywhere I’ve lived and a guilty pleasure of my strictly sober parents. I came up with a design to have a refined boat hull holding up a cheap soda bottle because I feel it is fairly representative of my internal conflict and my background. Furthermore, I made the decision to keep details to a minimum and color only in the bottle to leave the original object as the main focus of the piece and not my additions.
Project 2: Motorized Automata
Post 1 : Inspiration
I have a long-drawn connection with Norse mythology and metal music. I thought it would be cool to remake a scene from Norse Mythos in the style of Amon Amarth.
Post 2 : Initial Concept Sketching
As I was drawing up initial plans for this, I mainly struggled in determining how to package the automata to include all of the features I wanted, including a Drakkar, Serpent, Waves, and music.
Post 3 : Music Box Programming
Using the Youtube piano tutorial above, I then learned the Amon Amarth song “Twilight of the Thundergod”. I bought a cheap music box off of Amazon and then I punched holes in a piece of cardstock to program a music box to play the song I was inspired by. Shown to the right is the sheet music I had to use to program the music box.
Post 4 : Lattice Design
For the sides of my box, I wanted something unique, but also very Northern European in nature. For that reason, I designed Celtic knotwork in Onshape and imposed that onto the side of my box. The following is some images of how I did that.
Post 5 : Mechanism Design
To drive all of the components, I had to design a pulley and camshaft. The camshaft provides the wave motion and the pulleys transfer torque to the music box and drive the music box. I designed these to be printed in Nylon and to utilize heat set inserts with set screws to fix them onto driveshafts
Post 6 : “ᛏᚹᛁᛚᛁᚷᚺᛏ ᛟᚠ ᛏᚺᛖ ᛏᚺᚢᚾᛞᛖᚱᚷᛟᛞ”
Project Statement
Throughout my adult life, I have loved metal music and Norse Mythology: my first tattoo was a large image of Mjolnir across my shoulder. When given the task of creating an automata, my mind went immediately to the kind of imagery used by bands like Amon Amarth. The legendary battle between Thor and Jormungandr in the apocalypse, Ragnarok, came to mind as a cool story to tell. In designing this, I wanted to play to my strengths in mechanical design and fabrication, so I leaned into extensive use of CAD to create complex parts. Additionally, because this project was paying homage to music, I thought the inclusion of a music box playing one of Amon Amarth’s songs would be fitting. This created a number of problems in the mechanical design that required me to really experiment and spend a lot of time trying things in CAD. This meant that I did most of my fabrication in the last week which put a lot of stress on me. In hindsight, I think that I likely should have frozen some aspects of the design and frontloaded the work. This is a lesson I will take into the next project. Lastly, I really need to work on the finishing techniques; while I think this project is near complete, I want to make sure that one of the next projects I work on is very polished, with extensive use of color, strain, and finish to really dive into the artistic side of this class. Overall, this was a big step up from project 1 and I’m proud of what I produced.
Final Project Brainstorming
For the final project, I am interested in making something come to life. I want something more animated and kinetic than my other two projects.
Project 3: Emotive Object
Post 1 : Inspiration
This is Chicken Nugget, Destroyer of Worlds. She is my mini goldendoodle and I love her very much. I wanted to make an accurate representation of her. Chicken Nugget, D. o. W. does three things: watch TV, sleep, and lick. Sleeping and TV are not emotive, so I will make a licking chicken nugget clone for my project.
Post 2 : Circuitry
To create Chicken Nugget’s brain, I used a Rasberry Pico and programmed a simple Servo controller and ultrasonic sensor system. I wired an ultrasonic to power as well as clock and read signal lines. Additionally, I wired a servo to PWM communication. The wiring harness is shown on the right.
Post 3 : Final Product “Destroyer of Worlds”
