Day 3 Part 2: More lessons to learn

Lack of Experience Can lead to bad assumptions 

Second Assumption: Everything will work out fine the first time 

To be truthful, I haven't worked on projects of this scale before, and I came into the project with high hopes that I can stay on schedule. Being the beginner I was, I didn't consider that there can be unforeseen issues that  can set back deadlines. This required everyday from 8-7 working diligently on getting this beast of a project done on time. 

Things Start coming together

 Taking advice from the other day I put on a shirt that wouldn't result in me getting a major sunburn again while I welded. We started on each issue at a time starting with the bike.

Day 3 Part 1: Learning Lessons

Not Listening to my grandpa

I didn't want to return to fixing the pedal problem until I made some progress on other parts of the project. The issues were frustrating enough yesterday (Sunday) that I wanted to gain some faith in what I have set forth on by accomplishing some major tasks. The day didn't start off on a good note. I was going to weld the steel legs together in L-shape pieces, but this required welding gear. My grandpa being an experienced metal-smith for many years had that on hand. He didn't have a welding helmet. So first we had to track down the proper safety equip before I could attempt to go anywhere with this buffalo.

This is when the not listening came into play. My grandpa insisted I use the leather arm protections since I had been wearing a tank top while working. In his words "That welder is going to give a sun burn as red as a cherry." Oh grandpa I need some color anyway. I didn't listen resulting in a pretty intense sunburn along both of my arms.

First Lesson Learned: Listen to people who have more experience than you

Day 2: Stumbling blocks

Headaches Begin

It was an early day from the get go, but I was confident that we could accomplish a lot since all of yesterday (Saturday) was spent gathering the material we needed for the project. Oh how naive I was at this point in the project. I had figured that the drawings I made to cut out the legs were going to speed the work along, which it did, however I hadn't put much thought into the overall mechanics of the bicycle that was going to sit in center of the drum. 

The Bicycle above was constructed using two different bike frames and we reused the pedals instead of going with a new set to fit inside of the barrel. 

First Assumption: Bike pedals that rested in the frame were level and rotated on the same axis

My first assumption had been wrong with the alignment of the pedals. Sadly this was apparent after having mounted the bike into the drum. That quickly changed the optimism of the day. Now the time spent trying to incorporate the original pedal system into the project will have to be scrapped and more time spent on many unknowns. 

Day 1 Manufacturing

Starting Out 

 On paper it seemed that everything was going to work out when building this project. Day 1 Saturday saw my grandpa and myself cutting out the oil drum to build the body of the buffalo. It was a simple cut to make for me and everything was on track. Instead of going with two legged support for the bottom of the drum it was determined that there needed to be more legs to keep the body balanced and not being tipped over. Most of the day however was spent trying to find the material needed for the project so things were a little slow. 

Project Aesthetic

›Industrial Recycled 

While doing research on my project, I ran across some interesting artworks that helped inspire my project. The above is a metal rhino constructed out of various gears and scrap metals. At first I didn't think much of the effect or meaning behind what the artist tried to convey. What draws this work apart from bronze sculptures or more realistic animal statues is that the artist doesn't hide the parts that have become the whole of the piece. Each piece has become intrinsic to forming the image of the rhino. 

Similar to the rhino, this horse sculpture doesn't try to cover the parts of the whole. It accomplishes this aesthetic with more varied pieces of metals that bring about a recycled natural look. This appearance will require some extra thought into how I layout the piece but the result might reflect all the eco-awareness that Boulder is all about. 

Team Interactions

My team has met almost every morning before class in order to use our free time to finish the projects in a timely fashion. Both of my group members are very willing to put time towards helping one another and it has helped me stay on task with my project. The time I have spent with the group was useful when I have found myself stuck on a particular task. I hope that the help I have provided was met in the same way. Overall, this has been one of the top groups I have worked in during my time at the University.

My Frankenstien

 So Simple, So Nice 

I had extremely high hopes that I could buy and manufacture all the pieces needed for my project. It would be made of stainless steel parts that would reflect the sun-rays ever so nicely. The plan was to have the frame made out of tubing to allow for sheet metal to be formed over the exterior. Even thinking about it now makes me so happy. The design below is a concept of how I wanted to bend the tubing with simple corners and edges. Then I took a look at my wallet. Completely empty, my wallet showed no signs that it wanted to back this expensive endeavor. 

It's alive!

I will have to gather recycle material and incorporate that into my design. This is daunting! Using recycled material in an artwork requires a mastery that I do not have. Artists have an eye for the correct placement of those materials and I am hoping that maybe I can pull that off. The frame now will use an oil drum for the body which has a similar shape to that a buffalo and the supports will be tubing that I have found. This is only the beginning of the transformation of the beast. More is yet to come. 

 

Constraining the Monster

Constraints 

It would be easy to allow for the constraints of the project to greatly influence how I go about designing the work. This being my first real solo project, I wanted to stay as true to the initial design as possible. This will make the entire course more difficult, but I think the final product will be worth the extra effort.

Time

In a perfect world I would have all the time I needed to make this buffalo work, this being a 3 week maymester course  I do not. I need to have the CAD drawings done by the end of today to allow for the rest of the course spent on manufacturing. To help minimize manufacturing design, I will use prefabricated parts like oil drums and tanks instead of building pieces from scratch. This is going to help the overall design by being made of recycle material. 

Manufacturing

I don't have access to the machine shop all the time so I will have to design the cuts and manufacturing of the parts to greatly take advantage of the time I do have in there. 

Material/Cost

It is obvious by now that being a college student I don't have access to a lot of funds to back this project. While I wanted to try and buy parts from the hardware store, I can't  afford the price tag. I am going to have to go with recycled material as stated before which I think incorporates an influence from Boulder's environmental aspect. 

Safety

My buffalo will allow for people to hop on and make him move, one of the greatest constraints I will have to work around will be making this buffalo safe. After cutting and having all the pieces ready, I must go through every piece and make sure it won't cut or hurt anyone. 

Redesigning and Restarting is FUN!

Preliminary Design Analysis

Friday when presenting in front of the class, I had believed that I had settled on a project that I was going to focus my time and energy. This was of course a silly thought. I hadn't spent much time redesigning the concept or putting it through the mental ringer. When I was questioned about the ambition of the design and what I wanted to obtain from the project, my faith in the wind powered buffalo sculpture had started to fade. As quickly as my faith was being loss, I found faith in a new design. One of the professors suggested using a bicycle to power the sculpture and jokingly I said how about I incorporate the bike on the buffalo for people to ride on.









Well here I am! I threw out the calculations for trying to get this piece moving with the wind and made it more interactive. The user will sit on a bike on the back of the buffalo and through pedaling the piece will make the legs move on the animal. Why hadn't I thought of this before? I was blinded by the goal of getting something shaped up and shipped out I suppose.



Good thing I was pretty much settled on using Theo Jansen's mechanism concept to give my work a natural animal movement in a simple way. The only difference now is incorporating room for a person to sit on the buffalo to get this thing moving.

How Do I Do This!

I Have No  Experience !!!

I grew up around machines and animals. If I wasn't getting scraped up and beat up on by the chickens, then I was getting splinters or burns from the craft tools. At the end of my elementary school years, my grandpa had taught my siblings and I to use various tools from the band saw to the welders. As I went through school I gained more experience from shop classes, but while I had built simple things for these classes, I had never built something substantial. 

This will be my first attempt at such a grand project. 

Considering what most of my classmates are looking at for their projects, I have been told this sculpture is a bit ambitious. I am sure feeling the pressure this early into the class. Of course I am worried about the choice I am making, thinking to the fact that I haven't made something this big, and the time we have to get this done. But I want to devote all of my free time to something I am motivated about and I am surely motivated to make this beast of a project. 

Research 

Since I have no idea where to start, I guess I will have to look towards the great big internet for solutions. Through my trek across the web, I found a man that made tutorials for beginners such as myself.

Kevin Carron  has come to my aid.  He provides informational videos on using all sorts of materials and tools for getting the job done on a project. I highly recommend watching the free videos. Looks like the next couple of nights I will have to take some notes on his tutorials. 

Research is Key

Considerations 

I really want to utilize stainless steel for every part of the sculpture, but with the metal comes the worrisome amount of weight the turbines have to support. It went to researching some  turbine designs that will best utilize the wind flow coming into the rear of the piece. Now that things can get spinning and moving it's important to know how much it is going to spin and turn. Rotation was never strong suit so I looked for material on the power that can be supplied by the wind. Hopefully by tomorrow I can calculate the mass flow of air at different velocities and determine the amount of power that can be used on the turbine.

My concept turbine for powering the leg 

 Theo Jansen: Animal movement design 

Team Updates

Brendan Brown, one of my teammates, holding up the prototype coffee mug I made for him. It didn't have a bottom and couldn't hold fluid. The design worked better on paper than being made of it. Abdul Alzadjali, our other teammate, isn't in the photo. He was playing with the prototype Brendan made for him.

Getting Started: Design Project

Inspiration:

My grandparent's owned a road runner sculpture that's legs would spin with the wind, while it's body bobbed up and down. If a large gust of wind caught the clumsy sculpture, it would jam the legs into the body and fall down. On especially windy days, my grandpa would look out the window into the garden and complain about the roadrunner being buried face first in the soil. He would fix it upright and return to the kitchen, but eventually the work in keeping him upright didn't outweigh the beauty of the bird. The roadrunner found a nice place in a pile with other nick-knacks for future garage sales.

The Beginning: May 14, 2014

 Being apart of the CU Boulder campus for the last 3 years, I was surprised by the lack of an engineering influence on the student body. The art school allows students to post art in the library and across the campus, but most of the engineering projects stay within the engineering school. I want the engineering school to have a bigger impact on the campus.

With my project, I wanted to incorporate the icons that represent the school. Boulder has been the pioneer for environmental friendly ways. In this concept, I felt a wind powered kinetic sculpture would showcase the art behind being environmentally friendly.

Artist: Anthony Howe's Creation

The spirit of the roadrunner still lives on. Artist Anthony Howe builds beautiful surreal wind powered sculptures that can run with the slightest wind. While these incorporate great creativity and fluid motion, I wanted to focus on a more natural animal movement. 

 Artist: Andrew Chase Kinetic animal sculpture 

The above image shows the complex animal movements Andrew Chase, highlights in his kinetic sculptures. Powered by hydraulics the gorilla has a very solid animal movement, but unlike Anthony Howe, these sculptures require a lo of energy to move. 

Artist: Theo Jansen creates wind creatures out of PVC

Theo Jansen, uses a lot of the aspects for kinetic sculptures that I wanted to incorporate. His wind creatures use the wind to generate a fluid motion for the legs of his creations. However, he uses a plastic material that I feel won't hold up well with the direction I want to go with my personal project.  

My Project and Team Enigma

Considering the range of projects my group is currently looking at creating, we have decided to go with Team Enigma for the time being.

The picture grabbed from my drawing  journal shows my affinity for living life on the edge. Sketching with pen this man is crazy! While I wish I could say this is the life I live, I had a lack of pencils today when I started sketching. As it can be alluded to by the picture, I am hoping to incorporate some of the aspects of the artists above to create a wind powered buffalo sculpture.

Pen skills with no mistakes : Impressive

 In the next 3 weeks I will have daily updates on the progress of my project.