Kinetic Sculpture Built from over 600 Parts Gracefully Imitates a Swimming Sea Turtle #ArtTuesday
via COLOSSAL
Carapace is a kinetic sculpture designed by Derek Hugger (previously) that mimics the motion of a sea turtle gliding through the ocean. The wooden work is composed of over six hundred parts which allow the creature to elegantly tilt its fins, move its body up and down, and even crane its head as if rising above the water for air. A single crank controls the complex structure of gears and mechanisms which were designed to flow as organically as possible.
“A non-trivial amount of time was spent watching and studying videos of turtles swimming,” explains Hugger. “Getting the motions of Carapace to closely resemble the motions of real turtles was a true challenge. Countless hours were spent refining the sculpture’s motion to be as lifelike as possible, even before any mechanisms were developed to drive those motions.”
Every Tuesday is Art Tuesday here at Adafruit! Today we celebrate artists and makers from around the world who are designing innovative and creative works using technology, science, electronics and more. You can start your own career as an artist today with Adafruit’s conductive paints, art-related electronics kits, LEDs, wearables, 3D printers and more! Make your most imaginative designs come to life with our helpful tutorials from the Adafruit Learning System. And don’t forget to check in every Art Tuesday for more artistic inspiration here on the Adafruit Blog!