Kinetic Tech Art (and stuff)

I’ve been so busy this year, I haven’t had time to update this blog. The two big projects I’ve been working on were “interACTIVE” an exhibition at the Wichita Art Museum and A Technology Art Sculpture with the 5th grade class of Beech Elementary School. You can see a video documentary of the Beech School project here (click on the picture).

You might notice the absence of kids in the video. When ever I was with the kids I didn’t have time to take pictures.

Prior to that was the Wichita Art Museum. Lee Shiney Chris Gulick and I started in September and worked out tails off to get it up and running by February. You can see pictures and blogs of this project (here).

More to come…

Wow! that was great. Sorry I didn’t post pictures along the way but it was a very busy week at the CityArts Teen Extreme 2007. Jodi, Kendra, and I (Tom) worked with a hand full of teen aged kids to put on a show of kinetic sculptures using these simple fun technics. Each of them got to take there work home but before it was over they all sat down and animated their works together with the help of a Logochip controller. For the last couple of hours people, including their parents, wandered through the gallery while their sculptures danced before their eyes. It was great, everyone was thrilled and amazed. The Kids also made video of the art camp experience which is posted on You Tube -( click here )-

 Here’s a movie I made:

(click it) 

And pictures:                

Spiders are good for the garden but they scare me. Here’s a good way to have fun with your older sister. Attach some kind of spool to a toy motor shaft and mount it up high. Then tie a string to a creepy bug and run it up to the spool. When the motor runs the bug goes up. Disconnect the motor and the bug comes back down.

Click the picture for a video.

    Sometimes you just want to smack something. Ya know what I mean. Don’t take it personal. It’s real easy to do. If you want to make some noise or knock something over just stick a stick on a motor shaft and let fly. A word of caution once the motor stops turning don’t leave the battery connected too long. It may smoke.

Click for video:

Here’s something that was popular a few years ago. You could have a pot of flowers with a bumble bee or a butterfly flittering around it. It’s a neat tick. Mount a toy motor in the middle of the flowers. A wheel mounted on the motor shaft has a small hole drilled off center. A thin wire stuck in the hole extends out to the bug. Click this picture for a video.

          You can make any sort of flexible joint move with a little gear driven motor out of a toy robot or car.  Just wrap some fishing line around the drive wheel and then thread it up and around the joint. You can run one string through several joints. Here I made a worm out of sections of pink foam plastic and then taped them together. 

Click the picture to see it work.

     Imagine a little nest with a baby bird in it flitting around anxious for mom to come and drop a worm. This is a really cleaver use of a magnet.

    Attach the magnet to the shaft of a toy motor with some epoxy and then attach a flat head screw to the magnet. Try to keep the screw straight with the motor shaft. You could use a toy gear motor if you don’t want it to flip around so fast. Mount the motor on a base and point it at an angle towards the top of a rod which is also mounted in the base. Now I just made a bird as an example. There are lots of things you could have bob around at the top of the rod. Make some kind of pivot joint at the top of the rod and then wind a steal wire all around from that point down to the motor.

My explanation won’t do it justice. You’ll just have to see the video.

    Here’s another easy way to do something fun. And I know my friend Tab really likes noise. Take a toy motor and attach a short wire across the shaft like a “T”.  You could use glue or tape or here I used a peice of plastic rod. Then bend loops on both ends of the wire. Throught those loops make rings of wire that dangle like chain links. So as the motor spins the links swing out.

               Now the fun part. Mount the motor into some foam plastic. Then around the motor you can put steal or aluminum rods or tubing that will have jingle sound when the motor spins. Or you could use wood or plastic that will clatter.      Click this picture to see the movie.

    When you need to do a lot of pushing and pulling use a motor and a screw.  The tricky part is attaching the screw to the motor so that it doesn’t wobble too much but sometimes that can be a good thing. Here we have a butterfly made of red craft foam sheet suspended three wires. A wire attached to each wing and one in the middle. The middle wire is connected to a nut on the screw that goes up and down as the motor turns forward and backward.

Click the picture below to see it work. Just imagine a whole flock of these.

                     Here’s a simple fun idea for a kinetic art. Take some wire and wind it around a post or a cone or any shape. Then mount the bottom to a base and attach a small electric motor to the top. craft some sort of flower and hook it to the motor shaft off center, so it will wobble when it turns. Connect a bettery to the motor lead wires and have fun.

Its really fun. Click the picture to watch the video.