Amazing Kinetics

moonrise · Post by **moonrise** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 12:51 pm

These sculptures are amazing! Well worth taking a look at the youtube video.

By Theo Jansen's Strandbeests - Wallace & Gromit's World of Invention Episode 1 Preview - BBC One

Could a "playa proof" version could be constructed, strong enough to survive at burning man? Perhaps short intervals?

Kinetic projects at Burning Man are fascinating, it'd be great to hear about all of them.

Elorrum · Post by **Elorrum** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 4:34 pm

bbop beep boop... pop sizzzle sproing!

excuse me, something in my brain just broke as I watched that.

I'll need to regroup and look at that again and again and again.

delle · Post by **delle** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 5:37 pm

Gorgeous. Graceful.

Mindboggling!

...and Wouldn't It just be Lovely Out There?...... I have to agree.

unjonharley · Post by **unjonharley** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:33 pm

LorenRose · Post by **LorenRose** » Sat Jan 29, 2011 6:38 pm

OMG!! that is so amazing. that would be awesome to see on the playa

rodiponer · Post by **rodiponer** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 4:52 pm

I love these machines, I think they are so beautiful and alien when they move.

Theo Jansen covers a huge amount of construction and design details in his book, The Great Pretender. I think this is great reading if you are considering making one of these machines, especially if you will use plastic conduit as he does.

I made an aluminum one last year, as a mutant vehicle, Aluminipede (video, photos). I am of course happy to help answer any questions you have. The most difficult part of building these machines is:

- There are a lot of parts. A machine needs 12 legs to move smoothly, 8 if you can put up with a jerky motion. Each leg has a lot of moving parts. So if some part of the construction takes two hours on one leg, you have to multiply that by 12, and if you are working four hours on weeknights and 8 hours a day on weekends, that's an entire week taken up by a small part of the construction. There are many 'two hours per leg' jobs, so even in February I could see that it was going to be very tight to finish the machine in time, even with a strong and consistent pace of hours devoted to the machine every day.

- The parts need to be made to made precisely or the legs will not work right. With 4' tall legs, two of my legs are off by about 0.25" in one dimension, and they have a binding problem. Some of the axles are out of plane by only 1/32", and because of the geometry of the machine, this caused some fitting and assembly problems.

- There are a lot of weird torques and stresses in the system. It's not as obvious as a wheeled vehicle as to what needs to be built strongly or reinforced and in what direction.

With this in mind, if I were to make a machine like this again, I would try to either have a big team, a whole lot of money, or both. If I had a whole lot of money I'd spend a lot of time in CAD software and have the leg sections and crankshaft cut out as a single piece with a CNC router or plasma torch, rather than fabricating them out of tubing. This would cut months off of the construction time. Or I'd have a big team of people to help-- I did probably more than 3/4 of the work myself, and it was a huge undertaking for one person.

Or I'd make one that's not intended to carry people, that's much closer to Theo Jansen's designs, since he's spent years working the bugs out of his style.

rodiponer · Post by **rodiponer** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 4:59 pm

Also, here are some other Theo Jansen walking machines:

The one made with the flat steel plates looks especially easy to make, though it doesn't really support a person.

Major Krash · Post by **Major Krash** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 6:43 pm

incredible...

moonrise · Post by **moonrise** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 7:08 pm

I wanted to add this general description of kinetic science.
It was written by Elliot an eplayan burner well known for kinetics.

"Generally, kinetic art is any art that moves, even something so simple as a wind chime. At the opposite extreme, you have art that travels, like Jansen's Beach Beasts, and the human-powered vehicles of Kinetic Sculpture Racing."

Thanks Elliot!

lucky.bastard · Post by **lucky.bastard** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 8:08 pm

when art, science, and any number of other awesome things meet..,

oneeyeddick · Post by **oneeyeddick** » Sun Jan 30, 2011 11:44 pm

I bet he gets a discount for bulk purchasing PVC.

moonrise · Post by **moonrise** » Sun Feb 06, 2011 8:18 pm