About Our Amoeba Kinetic Sculpture

Amoeba is a kinetic structure that represents the electricity consumption in a household. It is to give users a good sense of energy consumption levels by having them observe the outstretching movements and the light changes on the sculpture. This design can be further develop versatility by increasing or decreasing the number of arms with respect to the number of areas and things which energy consumption interests users. For example, having it indicate the electrical consumption of kitchen appliances, and further abstracting different usage levels of different buildings. 

Previous Mechanisms We Had Thought About

The first method we thought up was that a stretchy fabric would be pulled by the shafts connecting to them. As the disc is rotating, its pin pulls the slider joint outwards away from the centre of the entire sculpture. This in turn drives the shaft to stretch the fabric of the legs. The difficult part of this idea is to find a stretch material to use that would resemble an amoeba's shape. We considered many of these including spandex, nylon, and moda. However, none of them worked out as we tested them out in our prototyping sessions.

Another method we thought up was that instead of a stretchy fabric being pulled, three plates are drawn in and out with binary links that are attached to a rack and pinion mechanism. As one is looking from the top view, it gives off the illusion that the legs are being stretched towards a particular room when instead, it is just flattening. We got this idea from looking at how chain mail worked.

 

First rendered prototype from SolidWorks