Inspiration
The inspiration comes from a field trip, imagine you, in childhood, travels with your family to a large field of sunflowers,
where all of the flowers smiles at you. The color of yellow lights up the whole sky and you smiles back. We are trying to preserve such feeling even when you are back at home.
Looking at solflower, you feel like your soul has been lightened to a brighter day.
So we have dedicated to make the thing artistic,
humanistic and fantastic, you can sit on a couch, look at the sol flower, and let your mind goes on a virtual trip to one of the most beautiful corner in the earth — The Sunflower Garden.
Or gather families together, sharing the beautiful memories you have in the past, maybe planning to create some memory in the future. Our Solflower will become the best pal to be around,
reminding you of the beautifulness of the natural world, and bring some new breeze of nature when you are tired.
Mechanics
For the kinetic sculpture, There are four main mechanism used in this assembly: The Intermittent Gear, the Crank-Piston linkage, Rack and Pinion, and the Gear-Cam Mechanism, and we have combined four of them to create an extraordinary mechanical sculpture that is aesthetically pleasing and calming
The Intermittent Gear will control the timing of the flower blossoming, as well as making each layer expand at different time. It is created using the gears that has several teeth removed and other teeth will function as normal to control the expand and collapse
The Crank Piston is responsible for the forward-return for the flower. The flower needs not only expanding but also collapsing, and it is this mechanics that make it possible
The Rack and Pinion Transfers the linear motion of piston into rotational motion, which is further transmitted to the Gear Cam Mechanism. The mechanism has two layers structurally, the first layer is a straight slider that defines the motion and the angle of motion, while the second layer provide forces to drive that motion
Process
The whole making process starts with CADDing, we have used extensive Creo Modeling and Mechanical Simulating to finish the whole process. You can find the 3D Modeling file Here.
Then we used the laser cutter in the innovation studio and woodshop to cut our raw materials. We have completed tolerance control and other miscellanous preparation that make the CAD file manufacturable. Then we assemble all these parts together with extreme care of tolerance control. We have also obtained several decorative element to make the whole assembly beautiful.
About Us
We are Group 22 from ME370 classes, consisting of four innovative members: Arielle, Benjamin, Juyi and Karen. We have dedicated our mechanical engineering knowledge to create a aesthetically beautiful kinematic sculptural clock for families to enjoy.
We appreciate your visit and hope you are satisfied with our design, meanwhile, you can visit our github page for more details. We have these files in our git repository
Our 3D Models
Animations
Website Source Code
Pitch Card
