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.

Trifecta

Our entry in the Naef Toy Competition consists of twelve triangular pyramids - only half are shown above - which come in three distinct sizes. The four smaller pyramids can stack into the four mid-sized pyramids which can then stack into the four largest pyramids.

All twelve pyramids can be arranged into one large four-sided pyramid...

... or into a cube.

They can also be stacked or arranged in numerous other ways. This toy provides plenty of leeway for them the user to be creative.

First Year Competition

Our prompt was was "Using a 19x24 sheet of Bristol board, no more and no less, craft a work of play."

Planes of Color

Iteration 2:

Iteration 3:

Iteration 4:

Final Model:

The six colors in the photos above were derived from Van Gogh's painting "A Wheatfield with Cypresses." The percentages of each color within the painting were calculated and proportional planes were formed. In the base model, all the planes were put together using simple butt joints. Each different orientation of the structure allows you to see two faces straight-on. In each of the next three iterations, the planes in one orientation were shifted each time, forming a new and different structure. Each iteration started back at the original model. In the final model, all three shifts are combined.

Material Melting Pot