October 2013 – ROBOHEMIAN

Jelly

Robo Jelly : Progress

October 14, 2013spetku8 Comments

Even since I first saw the Festo Aquajelly I’ve wanted to make one of my own. With the arrival of our brand new Flash Forge 3D printer…. this week seemed like the right time to start prototyping. If you haven’t ever seen the Festo Jelly, I advise you to check out the video below. This company inspires me. They sell fancy pneumatic parts and actuators but for shits and grins they make amazing robots that mimic the organic movement of animals. I mean, in a fantasy I’d come stay at their headquarters and make things with their parts for days on end…but who that I know of wouldn’t? I sat down earlier this week and drew up some parts in Sketchup. With a couple of revisions I made this jelly skeleton. It took about an hour to print one set of arms (I needed six total). So at around midnight…

Idea Bouquet

Light Bouquet

October 13, 2013spetku3 Comments

Back in 2010 I made a series of illustrations featuring incandescent bulbs. Since the light bulb is the symbol for the birth of an idea, I played on this visually for a while, using them in place of blades of grass, flowers, and the like. Like my delta robot army, this project was inspired by these ‘idea’ illustrations from the past. I have always wanted to make a bouquet of light bulbs that was portable, and finally with the right materials and a little push from my friend… I sat down this week and made it happen. A couple of months ago my collaborator Mark picked up a plastic transparent Christmas ornament from the craft store and suggested I use something like it as an alternative to actual glass. I agreed with him, but the Christmas bulbs weren’t the quirky up-side-down pear shape incandescent bulbs are, and the plastic had…