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scavenged fans, aluminum foil, & hot glue

A project log for fluidity from rigidity

a sinuous kinetic sculpture

quinn-silverleafQuinn Silverleaf 05/03/2014 at 04:050 Comments

At LVL1 tonight. Shared videos of several different kinds of kinetic sculptures with Jose, and discussed ideas for what shape I might like the project to take. I like the idea of a living creature--maybe a manta ray, with its wing-like undulation, or a dragonfly, with its flapping wings and segmented body.

Went down to the boneyard to look for parts that might spark an idea. There are tons of computer fans down there, including several of these:

I pulled the fans out of two of them, removed their frames, and hot glued them together so that they would spin independently on the same axis. Then, using a spoon, I shaped aluminum foil into 6 cups and wrapped them around blades on both fans. I tilted the cups away from each other so they wouldn't hit the ones on each other's blades as they moved by each other. Gentle blowing on them caused them to spin smoothly.

From watching videos, I knew I would need to attach the pieces to each other, so I hot glued two blades together, offsetting the fan blades. This allowed them to spin together. I then removed the foil, pulled out four more fans, and glued them to the others. I shaped a handle and glued it to the end of the stack. Then I reattached the foil cups, one to each fan, alternating placement as I went.

The six cups are still enough to move the entire assembly by blowing on them. I ran out of time to make more foil cups, but will return to the project later.

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