Experience / Experiment: 1:1
Art Center College of Design, Fall, 2004
http://web-edu.artcenter.edu/estudio/
Units: 3.0
Staff: Michael Fox (mafox@odesco.net)
Lecture / Location: Monday, Friday 9-12, South Building

Exercise_02: Mechanical Motions and Kinetic Typologies

Due Monday, September 27 (working physical kinetic model + photos posted on the WWW by Friday Oct. 01)

The exercise will be assessed on the following criteria:

40% Originality

50% Execution of physical model

10% Timeliness

The point of this exercise is to learn to make scaled mechanical models that can potentially be applied to your project.

The purpose of modeling is done as designers, and not as engineers. Your goal should be to demonstrate your intent. It is important for designers to build upon what exists in fields outside their particular specialty such as in mechanical and structural engineering. The importance lies in understanding such areas to the extent that you can design with them.

Your primary goal is to make a physical “working” kinetic model. You have liberties as to scale and your choice of materials. It is important that you think 3-dimensionally when designing your kinetic models and how they might be composed from two-dimensional pieces

Thing to consider is making your model:

· The point is not about how it looks, but rather how it works.

· Integrate available mechanical components (Lego gears, pulleys, etc., found objects, and objects from other mechanical objects.

· The key to a robust mechanical model is to keep them simple. Consider that they need to work repeatedly over and over again.

· Consider the source of actuation for your system.

Option01

Make a scaled kinetic 3-d physical model. Choose a mechanical movement that can potentially be applied to a full-scale project although it is understood that these are not defined yet. Combinations of two or more mechanical movements in one design are welcome.

Option02

If you are having difficulty choosing a mechanical motion to create your model then you may either choose one from the “MATRIX on the KDG Website (See Resources) or you may make the following?

Based on a few simple rules you are to make a geometrical “puzzle” that will rotate 360 degrees about a central point on the zed axis.

1) Make a geometrical variation of the object shown below composed of interconnected “wedges”

2) Where lines are show in bold, connect the wedges.

3) Make the object a continuous loop of connections.

Resources:

MATRIX: http://kdg.mit.edu/Matrix/matrix.html