Ornithopter Movement Study 2023

I met Shay working at a robotic church show and she kept in contact about a piece she was working on involving butterfly wings. When we first talked about collaborating, I had no time to take on additional projects and it was pushed off. A couple months later she emailed me her wrist was broken and she did not have the time to experiment and lock in the desired movement for her kinetic ornithopter sculpture before her thesis. I agreed to help, at this point, all I had to do was improve on her initial design.

I took her DXF's and remade the piece as built

I used blocks in solidworks to proof the kinematics we wanted

Then I remade it with the critical dimensions in mind. My key changes were a smaller build volume, unified gear block and arms, and enlarged the wings. I also put the gears apart at their pitch radious to reduce the grinding sound. I wanted the mechanical parts as compact as possible.

We had these pieces cut online at send cut send and Shay assembled them in her studio.

Below you can see Shays documentation of the piece at her show. In the mess of black wires the body of the piece melts away and the wings catch your eye. I look forward to collaborating with Shay more in the future.

https://www.shaysalehi.ca/sensitive-dependence-on-initial-conditions

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