The Lotus Flower it’s a kinetic and dynamic structure.

The goal of the exercise was to producing 3d printed pieces and explore the design opportunities arising from the potential and limitations of the technology to create a dynamic assembly with 2mm diameter rods linked together by 3d printed pieces.

Our idea was to design just one joint. This joint should had the capabilities of generate through the connections between themselves and with the help of the elastic nature of the tubes in order to form two geometrical moments, one that’s goes up and another one than goes to the sides.

The dynamic nature of the joint allows a level of movement between the rods themselves in a translation system by moving the rods in to a circle to move within itself and transfigure into a bigger or smaller structure.

The aim of this exercise was to create a kinetic structure with rotational movement with minimal number of 3d printed joints. It is a free standing structure made up of 20 2mm fiberglass rods, through two 3D printed perforated rings of dia..
The form resembles a conical cylinder which when rotated at different angles form different shapes. The form can also be on par with a whirling dervish which dances and rotates to is own tunes so as the structure which rotates, twists and turns to its capabilities.it is a portable structure and facilitates movement in x and y direction independent of the board it is fixed to. The bending properties of the fiber rod is utilized to the maximum resulting in various twists and turns.it is fixed to the board by laser cutting the board in the shape of the perforated ring.

The 3d printed ring has holes on the top in the shape of a flower and also holes on the sides at 30/60 degree which facilitates the angular twists and movements. The entire structure is centrally supported by vertical rods which helps the form to collapse. The end result of collapsing/bending is a floral pattern symbolizing a flower. The structure can be pushed and twisted to the extreme resulting in various complex shapes. The structure works of the simple mechanism of pushing and twisting.

http://youtu.be/V3mn_wL5ndY

The joints were designed to take advantage of the 3d printer’s ability to create small, yet detailed 3-dimensional objects. Each joint has multiple holes to allow rods to fit in 8 different directions.  The dynamic movement of the structure resembles that of a curtain. The structure can take several forms by sliding the joints through the rods: the looping (side) rods slide along a central rod arc. The transition exposed in the photo overlays is between two basic positions: one where the side rods are lying flat on the board and one where they form a full scale volume following the arc.

We created joints of 3 different sizes. Each of the two largest joints connects half of the side rods, so that they are able to rotate from a common point, whilst the smaller joints fix the ends of the rods, allowing linear movement along the arc that passes through the central joint channel.

Printing on the z-corp machine (composite powder) limited the joint’s strength, so further experimentation on possible forms was challenging due to the joints breaking, but nonetheless, we discovered the component’s tension thresholds and exploited its capabilities.

GROUP 02
Karl Francalanza
Dimitrios Aidonis
Tobias Grumstrup Lund Øhrstrøm

Moving rods – movie

Rods are still

Structure in full shape

Joints on the structure

The printed joints