Team Charcool Drawing Machine

Our final first year project - a drawing machine. We used magnets placed in gears to pull iron filings that had been mixed with charcoal to create our drawing. We ended up with charcoal circles on our compositions. Lines were created from pulling the paper off - the iron filings were still being pulled by the magnets.

Team Charcool study models

Side view of our study model

Study Model

Large gear

Large gear

Medium gear

Small, Medium, and Large gears connected

These are our studies of the full model and our gears. The gears will be placed on a plate just under the top plate (that will hold the paper) of the box-part of the study model. They will be turned by a crank attached to a vertical gear that connects to the rest of the horizontal gears. Each gear has at least one half inch hole in it where a magnet can be placed. The gears will be made out of dark wood and cut out on the lasercamm. The final box will be made out of light wood, and the arms will be made out of dark wood. The squares on the top of the study model represent two plexiglass pieces that will dispense charcoal onto the paper below. One of the plexiglass pieces will have cups filled with charcoal and iron shavings and the bottom will have holes, so when that bottom one is pulled away, the charcoal will fall onto the paper. The magnets placed in the gears will pull the charcoal and iron shavings as they turn, thus creating a drawing.

threesixty

threesixty is a simple wooden toy made in a 30-degree wedge.  Each piece has a "nub" and a hole which allow each block to join with others to make various patterns, shapes, and sculptures.  The toy arrives in a screen-printed box with a foam circle to hold the pieces in a round shape, and a ribbon to ease the removal of the toy.