Kinetic Motion Sculpture

SolidWorks Animation

Movement 92 from 507movements.com

Final Kinetic Sculpture

Software

• SolidWorks

• Physlets Tracker

• Logger Pro

Hardware

• Laser Cutting

The kinetic sculpture project was an opportunity for me to apply the concepts I learned in my sophomore Mechanics II class through fabricating and analyzing a kinematic mechanism.

Phase I of the project involved creating a physical model of my sculpture. I drew inspiration from animated movements found on 507movements.com, and came up with two possible ideas. However, due to COVID-19, I had to move back home before I could finalize and laser-cut my design, leading to the use of household items.

Phase II required us to develop a mathematical model relating two components of the structure together. I then validated that model using video tracking software through Logger Pro.

Physlets Video Tracker

Still from SolidWorks Motion Study

For my engineering education internship, I had the chance to refine this assignment, specifically adapting it to be more suitable for a virtual classroom environment.

I again went on 507movements.com and chose a relatively straightforward mechanism that could be modeled on SolidWorks. This would allow students to still create a model while also developing their CAD skills. Then, I created a CAD model and ran a simulation analysis on it, discovering that there were many parameters that could be graphed and compared with.

I also explored another video analysis tracking software, Physlets, and ended with a final summary of my findings.