Spiral Connector Makes Fastener-Free Assemblies

June 20, 2025 by Donald Papp 11 Comments

[Anton Gaia]’s SPIRAL sculpture resembles an organizer or modern shelving unit, but what’s really interesting is how it goes together. It’s made entirely from assembling copies of a single component (two, if you count the short ‘end pieces’ as separate) without a fastener in sight. [Anton] made the 3D model available, so check it out for yourself!

The self-similar design of the joint, based on the golden spiral, makes a self-supporting joint that requires neither glue nor fasteners.

The ends of each part form a tight, spiral-shaped joint when assembled with its neighbors. Parts connect solely to themselves without any need of fasteners or adhesives.

The end result is secure, scalable, and with a harmonious structure that is very pleasing to look at. Small wonder [Anton] used it as the basis for artistic work. You can see more pictures here.

The design of the joint is based on the golden spiral (which it turns out is also a pretty useful chicken coop architecture.)

The parts lend themselves quite well to 3D printing, and we’d like to take a moment to appreciate that [Anton] shared the .step file instead of just an STL. STEP (or STP) files can be imported meaningfully into CAD programs, making it much easier to incorporate the design into one’s own work. STEP is also supported natively in many 3D printer slicers, so there’s no need to convert formats just to print them.

A brief video describing SPIRAL is embedded just below, with a closer look at how the pieces fit together.

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Solar Powered Flower Chases The Light

September 2, 2023 by Lewin Day 2 Comments

Many plants are capable of tracking the sun in order to get the most possible light. [hannu_hell] built a solar powered sculpture that replicates this light sensitivity for the benefit of better charging its own batteries, allowing it to run theoretically indefinitely where suitable light was available.

The 3D-printed flower features six movable petals mounted on an articulated stem. The flower’s leaves themselves bear solar panels that collect energy, analogous to leaves on a plant. A Raspberry Pi Pico is at the heart of the show, which is outfitted with a DS1307 real-time clock and a ST7735 TFT display for displaying date and time information. It’s also responsible for controlling servos that aim the flower’s solar panels towards the brightest light source available. This is achieved by using the Pico to read several photoresistors to determine light levels and adjust the leaves accordingly.

It’s a fun build, and one that could teach useful lessons relevant to even large-scale solar arrays. Video after the break.

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Sound Sculpture Uses Daisy Seed To Generate Audio

April 2, 2023 by Lewin Day No comments

Here at Hackaday, we love a good art piece, whether that involves light or sound. Combining both is a sure-fire way to get our attention, and [Eirik Brandal] did just that with his Void Extrusion piece.

The project is built around the Daisy Seed from Electrosmith. It’s an embedded platform designed for musical purposes, which made it perfect for [Eirik]’s project. Based on an STM32 chip, it’s very capable when it comes to DSP tasks. In this role, it’s charged with algorithmic music composition, providing the captivating soundtrack that emanates from the sculpture.

The sculpture itself looks almost like a fancy mid-century home from the Hollywood Hills, but it’s fundamentally a little more abstract than that. [Eirik] built it as an opportunity to experiment with using 3D printed forms in his work. To that end, it features a beautiful diffused LED wall and a speaker enclosure as an integral part of the build. The LEDs are run from an Arduino Nano Every.

[Eirik’s] work shows us that “generative” music can be intoxicating and compelling with a real sense of feeling and mood. The sculpture is a visually-capable pairing that works with the soundscape. It recalls us of some other great artworks we’ve featured from [Eirik] before, too.

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Enormous Metal Sculpture Becomes An Antenna

March 23, 2023 by Bryan Cockfield 16 Comments

Those who have worked with high voltage know well enough that anything can be a conductor at high enough voltages. Similarly, amateur radio operators will jump at any chance to turn a random object into an antenna. Flag poles, gutters, and even streams of water can be turned into radiating elements for a transmitter, but the members of this amateur radio club were thinking a little bit bigger when they hooked up their transmitter to this giant sculpture.

For those who haven’t been to the Rochester Institute of Technology (RIT) in upstate New York, the enormous metal behemoth is not a subtle piece of artwork and sits right at the entrance to the university. It’s over 70 feet tall and made out of bronze and steel, a dream for any amateur radio operator. With the university’s permission and some help to ensure everyone’s safety during the operation, the group attached a feedline to the sculpture with a magnet, while the shield wire was attached to a ground rod nearby. A Yaesu FT-991 running on only 5 watts and transmitting in the 20-meter band was able to make contacts throughout much of the eastern United States with this setup.

This project actually started as an in-joke within the radio club, as reported by Reddit user [bbbbbthatsfivebees] who is a member. Eventually the joke became reality, as the sculpture is almost a perfect antenna for certain ham bands. Others in the comments noted that they might have better luck with lower frequency bands such as the 40-meter band or possibly the 60-meter band, due to the height of the structure. And, for those who are still wondering if you really can use a stream of water to transmit radio waves, it is indeed possible.

A small electronic board next to colorful stylized speaker

Soundscape Sculpture Is Pleasing Art For Your Ears

January 18, 2023 by Chris Wilkinson 4 Comments

Artist and self-described “maker of objects” [Daric Gill] is sharing some of the world’s most pleasing and acoustically interesting soundscapes with museum patrons in his latest work, ‘The Memory Machine: Sound‘.

Now featured at the Center of Science and Industry museum, the interactive stereo soundscape generator resembles three decorated ‘tree trunks’, suspended high above the exhibition floor. When visitors approach the artwork, they are treated to a randomly selected soundscape sample.

The build, which is described in blog form here, teases just some of the sixty soundscape samples that can be heard. These include the noisy chattering of crowds underneath the Eiffel Tower in Paris, the mellow melodies of a meadow high in the Swiss Alps, and the pumping atmosphere of a baseball match played in Yankee Stadium, New York City.

Only the middle trunk reveals the electronic soul of the installation – an Adafruit M4 Feather Express, Music Maker Featherwing and a motion sensor. The flanking trunks house the speakers and amplifier. The motion sensor triggers the microcontroller, which then plays a randomly selected sample from an SD card.

[Daric] went to great lengths to reuse discarded materials, and even cannibalized parts from other sculptures to see his vision through. This focus underpins a substantial amount of woodworking and machining that went into this build, so the full video is certainly worth a watch to see the whole project come together.

Make sure to check out our coverage of other funky installations, like this mesmerizing ceiling decoration.

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In A Way, 3D Scanning Is Over A Century Old

October 2, 2022 by Donald Papp 23 Comments

In France during the mid-to-late 1800s, one could go into François Willème’s studio, sit for a photo session consisting of 24 cameras arranged in a circle around the subject, and in a matter of days obtain a photosculpture. A photosculpture was essentially a sculpture representing, with a high degree of exactitude, the photographed subject. The kicker was that it was both much faster and far cheaper than traditional sculpting, and the process was remarkably similar in principle to 3D scanning. Not bad for well over a century ago.

This article takes a look at François’ method for using the technology and materials of the time to create 3D reproductions of photographed subjects. The article draws a connection between photosculpture and 3D printing, but we think the commonality with 3D scanning is much clearer.

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3D-Printable Sculpture Shows Off Unpredictable Order Of Chains

September 25, 2022 by Donald Papp 7 Comments

[davemoneysign] designed this fascinating roller chain kinetic sculpture, which creates tumbling and unpredictable patterns and shapes as long as the handle is turned; a surprisingly organic behavior considering the simplicity and rigidity of the parts.

3D-printed, with a satisfying assembly process.

The inspiration for this came from [Arthur Ganson]’s Machine With Roller Chain sculpture (video, embeded below). The original uses a metal chain and is motor-driven, but [davemoneysign] was inspired to create a desktop and hand-cranked manual version. This new version is entirely 3D-printed, and each of the pieces prints without supports.

According to [davemoneysign], the model works well with a chain of 36 links, but one could easily experiment with more or fewer and see how that changes the results. Perhaps with the addition of a motor this design could be adapted into something like this chains-and-sprockets clock?

You can see [Arthur Ganson]’s original in action in the video embedded below. It demonstrates very well the piece’s chaotic and unpredictable — yet oddly orderly — movement and shapes. Small wonder [davemoneysign] found inspiration in it.

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