The Most Ornate Birdbath You’ve Ever Seen

June 4, 2023 by Danie Conradie 8 Comments

When one thinks of art, a birdbath may not be the first thing that comes to mind. However, there is no denying that the La Fontaine aux Oiseaux (The Bird Fountain) is a true work of art. This automaton, created by automaton maker [François Junod] in collaboration with 20 different workshops and craftsmen, represents thousands of hours of work and boasts a complex beauty that is both visible and hidden.

Commissioned by the Van Cleef & Arpels jewelry company, this purely mechanical display piece features a pair of jewel-encrusted birds that perform a little routine around the edge of the bath every hour. All the birds’ appendages move while bird song is added with the help of a whistle and bellows. The “water” is also mechanized, with a series of metal plates moving together to create ripple effects, while a water lily opens and closes and a dragonfly flutters above the surface.

The overall effect of this ridiculously over-the-top mechanical art piece is absolutely mesmerizing. Even if the bejeweled exterior isn’t quite your style, you can still appreciate its intricate workings thanks the video after the break giving us a peek at the development.

We’ve featured some of [François]’ other work before, which is equally impressive and displays the mechanics in all it’s glory. If you want to try your hand at making automatons, 3D printing is the perfect way to get started.

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a kinetic bar framework mounted on a wooden base made of 3d printed bars of alternative black and grey color, each joined with m3 bolts and nuts

Kinetic Cyclic Scissors

October 26, 2022 by Abe Connelly 6 Comments

[Henry Segerman] and [Kyle VanDeventer] merge math and mechanics to create a kinetic cyclic scissors sculpture out of 3D printed bars adjoined together with M3 bolts and nuts.

The kinetic sculpture can be thought of as a part of an infinite tiling of self similar quadrilaterals in the plane. The tiling of the plane by these self similar quadrilaterals can be realized as a framework by joining the diagonal points of each quadrilateral with bars. The basic question [Henry] and [Kyle] wanted to answer was under what conditions can the realized bar framework of a subsection of the tiling be made to move. Surprisingly, when the quadrilateral is a parallelogram, like in a scissor lift, or “cyclic”, when the endpoints lie on a circle, the bar framework can move. Tweaking the ratios of the middle lengths in a cyclic configuration leads to different types of rotational symmetry that can be achieved as the structure folds in on itself.

[Henry] and [Kyle] go into more detail in their Bridges Conference paper, with derivations and further discussions about the symmetry induced by adjusting the constraints. The details are light on the actual kinetic sculpture featured in the video but the bar framework was chosen to have a mirror type of symmetry with a motor attached to one of the central, lower bars to drive the movement of the sculpture.

The bar framework is available for download for anyone wanting to 3D print or laser cut their own. Bar frameworks are useful ideas and we’ve seen them used in art sculptures to strandbeests, so it’s great to see further explorations in this space.

Video after the break!

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Flux: A Forty Foot Long Kinetic Art Piece

October 7, 2022 by Dave Rowntree 5 Comments

No office space is complete without some eye-catching art piece to gawp at whilst you mull over your latest problem. But LED-based displays are common enough to be boring these days. Kinetic art pieces are where it’s at, and this piece called Flux is a perfect example.

Commissioned for the Toronto office of a very popular e-commerce platform and constructed by [Nicholas Stedman], Flux consists of twenty identical planks on the ceiling, arranged in a line forty feet long. Each plank has a pair of rotating prisms, constructed from a stack of foam sheets, finished with metallic paint. The prisms are spun by individual stepper motors, each of which is driven by a TMC2160-based module, making them whisper-quiet.

A simple 3D printed bracket holds a small PCB holding an AMS AS5600 rotary magnetic encoder, onto the rear of the stepper motor. This allows for closed-loop feedback to the shared Arduino, which is very important for a sculpture such as this. Each Arduino is hooked up to a Raspberry Pi, running a simple application written in node.js which is responsible for coordinating movement, as well as uploading updated firmware images as required. A simple, but very effective build, we think!

Even more fun are kinetic art installations that are reactive to some data source, such as Adad, which visualizes lightning strike data. If these builds are just too big and complex, we’ve seen many examples of smaller desktop toys, such as this 3D printed tumbling chain demo for example.

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A kinetic art installation with many metal parts

Kinetic Art Installation Brings All The World’s Lightning To One Place

January 27, 2022 by Robin Kearey 2 Comments

Lightning is a force to be reckoned with: ever since ancient times, humans have been in awe of the lethal power of lightning strikes and the deafening roar of thunder. Quite reasonably, they ascribed these events to acts of angry gods; today, modern science provides a more down-to-earth explanation of the physics involved, and a world-wide network of sensors generates a real-time record of lightning strikes around the globe.

[Dmitry Morozov]’s latest kinetic art installation called Adad is driven by this stream of data. Named after a Mesopotamian god of thunder, it consists of a set of arms that suddenly jerk upwards when a lightning strike is detected anywhere in the world. When an arm falls down again, it strikes a piezo crystal, which generates an electric charge that triggers a bright flash of light as well as a sound effect. Those crystals are pieces of potassium sodium tartrate (also known as Rochelle salt) and were grown specifically for this project. They are housed in plexiglass holders which also provide electrical connections.

Adad‘s spider-like design, its eerie sounds as well as the sudden pops and flashes make this a rather unsettling yet beautiful display of Nature’s violence. And it’s a piece of beauty from an engineering point of view as well: sleek aluminium tubes, servo-driven motion and those transparent crystal holders, all controlled by an Arduino that receives live lightning data through an internet connection.

We’ve seen several types of lightning detectors, usually based on a standard radio receiver or a specialized chip. If you’re interested in growing your own piezo crystals, we’ve covered that too. Continue reading “Kinetic Art Installation Brings All The World’s Lightning To One Place” →

Building A Kinetic Sand Art Table

October 31, 2021 by Lewin Day 14 Comments

Many of us have marveled at art installations that feature marbles quietly and ceaselessly tracing out beautiful patterns in sand. [DIY Machines] is here to show us that it’s entirely possible to build one yourself at home!

The basic mechanism is simple enough. The table uses a Cartesian motion platform to move a magnet underneath a table. On top of the table, a metal sphere attached to the magnet moves through craft sand to draw attractive patterns. An Arduino and Raspberry Pi work together to command the stepper motors to create various patterns in the sand.

Low-cost pine is used to build most of the table, with oak used for the attractive bare wooden top. RGB LEDs surround the sand surface in order to light the scene, with options for mad disco lighting or simple white light for a subtler look. Other nice touches include sitting the craft sand atop a layer of faux leather, so the ball moving through the sand doesn’t make annoying crunching sounds as the ball moves.

It’s a great build that focuses on the smaller details like noise that can make a big difference to the final experience. We’ve seen similar projects before, too. Video after the break.
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Lego Tardis Spins Through The Void

November 12, 2018 by Rich Hawkes 8 Comments

Using LEGO Technic gears and rods seems like a great way of bringing animation to your regular LEGO creation. Using gears and crank shafts you can animate models from your favorite TV show or movie like LEGO kinetic sculpture maker, [Josh DaVid] has done when he created a spinning TARDIS. Crank the handle and the sculpture spins through space and time.

The large gear stays in place. The hidden gears, turned by the crank, rotate a shaft from below that goes through the large gear making the TARDIS rotate around the main axis. Connected to the TARDIS model is a smaller gear, at an angle, that meshes with the larger, stationary, gear. This smaller gear is what causes the TARDIS to rotate around its own axis while the whole thing rotates around the main axis. If your hand gets too tired, you can substitute a LEGO motor.

It’s a neat effect, and you can get the plans [Josh]’s Etsy page. The best part, however, is that you can get a set with all the parts as well! The TARDIS is a popular item here and we’ve had plenty of projects with it as the focus: Everything from a tree topper to sub-woofers. The only question we have, of course, is, ‘Is it bigger on the inside?’

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A Motor, An Arduino And A Whole Bunch Of Laser Cutting

March 16, 2015 by James Hobson 14 Comments

[Guido] was recently commissioned to build a kinetic sculpture for a client who wanted something unique. What he came up with is really awesome.

It’s called ORBIS: The Wooden Kinetic & Lighting Sculpture. It mounts to the wall and provides a focal point for the room – a bright flashy spinning one at that! Does it just stay there and do random things? Nope, of course not! [Guido] built it with a unique control box, two Arduino 2560’s and an Xbee to communicate between them.

He was told to design it using old and new technologies so he’s got a rotary phone dial on the side of the box which allows the user to change through the different modes.

Switches on top also let you change the color of the sculpture and the speed at which it moves around. Since it’s wireless it can be easily set on the coffee table and become an instant conversation starter.

See it in action after the break.

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