You may have heard of a heart of glass or have a glass jaw, but have you ever seen a glass robot?
[Simone Giertz], has taken two of her favorite things, stained glass and robotics, and fused them into a single project. Using an existing metal robot arm as a template, she cut and soldered her stained glass panels before reassembling the robot with its new solarpunk limbs. During testing though, one of the glass panels repeatedly failed at a solder joint.
Undaunted, [Giertz] replaced the faulty piece with an original metal component allowing this “grandma cyberpunk-core” bot to prepare tea as intended. We really love when makers bring us through the whole process, mishaps and all, and [Giertz] never disappoints in this respect. We do wonder a bit about the long-term health impacts of making tea with a robot containing leaded solder though.
If you’re interested in more robots made from unusual materials, checkout this gripper made from a dead spider or this work on phase changing robots.
Wonder if she’d be interested in using the fiberglass variants of stained glass. Not sure how many colors they have and if the look is the same, but the strength would be better.
Perhaps also consider doubling up on the thickness??
The problem was not in the glass, but in the solder joints.
If she would have made the sides from one piece with drilled holes, there would have been no problem, but that is a solution nigh impossible with the tools that she used (glass cutter).
That’s a fantastic piece of art! It’s truly impressive to see the skillful combination of classic stained glass crafts with servo-driven robotics. The integration of these two elements is executed flawlessly and is a delight to observe. Your unique approach demonstrates both your immense talent and creativity. Congratulations on creating such a captivating and innovative artwork!
Most all of her work is a neat combination of wildly creative and also solid engineering, but this one sets a pretty high bar, right up there with her diy tesla pickup.
I’m curious if anyone in the stained glass world is using unleaded solder.
Lovely! ā¤ļø Has an 70s touch of esthetics. Very elegant. Kudos. šš