Cooper's Engine
Aesthetics Design
Goal
We plan for the device to break apart a model of something, and reassemble it periodically. We choose the figure of Peter Cooper to be our design, because Peter Cooper embodies both the school and our work, incorporating art, architecture, and engineering in a single entity.
We decided from early on to give our kinetic sculpture a human touch. We want to build a cool-looking machine with intricate mechanics and electronics that showcases the beauty of engineering. However, we do not want our sculpture to be completely cold and machine-like. We want the viewers to be able to find something relatable, something familiar to their own experiences when they interact with the machine. This is why we carefully chose a human figure to be the center of focus in our piece.
3D Printing Peter Cooper Figure
When we first saw Jake(a Cooper alumni)’s Peter Cooper action figure, we immediately knew that we had found the perfect final puzzle for our kinetic sculpture. We 3D printed out the figure at 66% size to fit the size of the gear system.
You can download Jake's Peter Cooper action figure 3D-printing file on Thingiverse. Jsut click the link below or search "Peter Cooper" on Thingiverse.
Molding
We modified the 3D printed figure by gluing the movable joint together. In order to prevent undercut for molding, we smoothed out the grooves of the figure. We use the 3D printed model as the positive mode and use silicon ruber for negative mold. The final figure is casted with wax and cut down into six parts for each arm.
