Light Experimentation - Part 10: Mock-up for Kinetic Set-up

After the resin droplets are completed, Grant suggest to do a small mock-up of how the kinetic set-up can work before we work on the life-size model.

He shared several motion set-ups with me, we also watched a video to understand more about the Changi Airport's Kinetic Raindrops. The top right corner picture is a diesel engine, an option to consider other than the current spiral design.

Once we decided to go for up-down motion in a spiral design. We went ahead to work on the mock-up

Acrylic parts were laser-cut

 Using bolts and thread, Grant put together the mock-up

As the top spins, the bolts will go up and down. The distance is not obvious here as the plate is small. He suggest that the main plate to be 50cm for the final one so the motion of the resin droplets will be more significant. I was quite hesitant as I didn't want the kinetic lamp to be too big, Grant also feels that it is not as nice if the structure is too big but we were also worried that if the motion is not significant, there's really no point to do it at all plus we have come so far and since it's a pilot test, we decided to go ahead with it.

As shared earlier in this post, my initial plan was to finish the resin droplets with Grant and I will work on the kinetic set-up with my dad and Jason as there was a lot of uncertainties due to Covid-19 and I was racing against time, so while we were working on the resin droplet production, my dad and I went ahead to do research on motors and he helped me to cut and prepare the necessary pieces to assemble the kinetic set-up.

Some motors my dad have at home.

We were looking for a motor that has a slow speed. There were several considerations:

• The total weight of resin droplets in correlation with the motor's speed
• There are AC motors, DC motors and stepper motors to test. In the end, we chose stepper motors as AC & DC motors, even after programming the speed is still quite fast. 

Some of his sketches

Based on Grant's mock-up, my dad went ahead to cut the necessary wood pieces.

Even though my dad and Jason are helping me with the kinetic set-up, we still need Grant's help to 3D print for certain parts such as gear or holders. We will be discussing further with him on this before we continue.