how to simulate the wind kinetic sculpture? Help

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on February 24, 2014 at 6:28am

Hi,

This can be easily simulated in Kangaroo, just using bending and springs:

The important thing is that each member is a polyline, with vertices at any point it connects to another member.

This is just a quick example with equal loads, and I've left it to you to balance the moments about each pivot point.

Later I'll show how wind forces can be added to make it rotate.

I've been thinking for a while this would be a nice thing to try and simulate, whenever I see this book cover:

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on February 24, 2014 at 9:07am

On second thoughts - It's probably actually even simpler to do it all with springs, to avoid issues with bending of unequal segments.

Here's a definition that also does the moment calculations to make sure the sides are always balanced

Attachments:

• balancetoy.gh, 18 KB

Permalink Reply by Lo cheng wei on February 24, 2014 at 10:31am

hey Daniel, thanks for your reply it really good for me, and I really love your add-on, kangaroo, it help me a lots in my design.

The book that you mentioned above I browsed once before, the content is too difficult to me. although I try to understand it...

The artist, Marco Mahler, who is famous kinetic sculptor, and his last work used 3D printer to realize his project, and the 3d printer sculpture inspire me that i would to "parameter" this kinetic sculpture. if I have any work or image I will share it to you.

the image is here: 

http://www.etsy.com/listing/171383761/quaternary-tree-mobile-level-...

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on February 24, 2014 at 11:22am

Very nice link, thanks.

I think Grasshopper could be ideal for designing more free-form versions of these

Permalink Reply by Lo cheng wei on March 5, 2014 at 3:26am

Hi Daniel:

 I try to simulate the pieces, however the result is not what I thought.

Can I have your file of the bending example that you posed in the gif image?

the attachment is my result. The white line is separate from the structure. I don't know why. Does anyone can fix it?

Permalink Reply by Lo cheng wei on March 5, 2014 at 3:47am

this is the file I try.

Attachments:

• wind kinetic test.gh, 21 KB

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on March 6, 2014 at 3:52am

There needs to be an additional vertex at the junction to allow the parts to connect. Also - now that the line is made up of 2 segments there needs to be something else to keep them straight - as you mention in your other post.

Permalink Reply by taz on March 2, 2014 at 1:56pm

That image might be a Calder piece? Gehry just helped curate an exhibit of his work in LA:

LACMA

Permalink Reply by Daniel Piker on March 6, 2014 at 4:04am

Indeed you're right Taz.

That sounds like a nice exhibition.

Permalink Reply by Camilo Castro on February 16, 2017 at 1:47pm

Hey there,

I've been working on a definition that simulates the mobile on the cover of the book above but i'm having some problems with it. I've managed to keep the lines straight, and i have put the weights on the vertices. The problem is that i can't balance the lines and when i run the kangaroo solver everything falls (the lines stay joined on the vertices).

I would like it to act real, so if i have different weights on the vertices of one line, the heavier one will go down on relation with the weight of the other side so the resulting line will be sloped but not completely aligned with the z axis.

Here's the definition i've been working on, just hope someone can help me with it.

Thanks in advance,

Camilo

Attachments:

• Mobil_V2.gh, 29 KB