Wedgwood Armour and Robot Arm
My final university piece was inspired by Italian Renaissance armourer Filippo Negroli and his examples of parade armour. The Wedgwood inspired finish is a personal touch reflecting on my upbringing in Stoke-on-Trent.
The way armour is treated like a fragile art piece on display is something I wanted to focus on. I achieved this by creating the armour from Jesmonite to mimic the look and qualities of a delicate ceramic vase.
Dream Machine demonstrates an artificially intelligent robotic arm breaking away from its human-controlled automation and fulfils its dream of becoming the creator. Taking my love of science-fiction and craftsmanship, I wanted to show the more creative and fun side of artificial intelligence, rather than the corrupt and immoral side often portrayed in the media.
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Skills: Sculpting, Moulding, Casting, Animatronics, Finishing and Painting, Welding, Metalwork, Electronics
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Robotic Animatronic Arm
The main body of the robotic arm was a dense foam mannequin leg. I used plasterboard fixings to secure the brackets for the linear actuators and the metal collar.
I really enjoyed working on the electronics and creating a 3-axis mechanism. This consist of three servos that control the up, down and side to side movement of the head.
The main body has two linear actuators that control the forward and backwards motion at two points. The rotational movement is controlled by a windscreen wiper motor, the voltage needed to be much lower than the linear actuators to get a slow smooth motion.
The servos, actuators and wiper motor are all controlled by a DMX control board and relay board. I used a piece of software called VSA (Visual Show Automation) which enabled me to control and animate each motor so they all worked together making the robot arm move.
The base was constructed with 20mm box section steel, which I welded together. The arm pivots on a 12mm steel rod inserted through bearings to get a nice smooth movement. The whole piece sits on a wooden base which has a lazy susan attached to assist in the smooth rotational movement.
The head is a mixture of foam and 3D printed parts all sprayed a gunmetal colour.
Skills: Welding, Metalwork, Soldering, Electronics, 3D Printing
Scroll down to check out the final images and the process images...
