Role: Mechanical engineer, hardware prototyper, cad modeller

Brooklyn based artist, Anthony Sneed, commissioned a kinetic piece for his gallery show Grand Illusion at the Shooting Gallery in San Francisco. I worked with fellow ITPers, Shahar Zaks and Luis Violante, to design, engineer, and fabricate a reactive version of Anthony’s canvas or wood paintings.

There were a few design challenges along the way:

Fabricating custom linkages to convert radial motion of a motor into a linear drawer motion.

As the middle-ground is static, design a mechanism to move two drawers (top and bottom) with one motor.

Ensure the drawers retain smooth travel in and out of the cabinet.

Colin Day and Anthony put this great video together. It documents the artist himself interacting with his piece.

I don’t believe he changes the cabinet’s behavior mode in the video.

Shahar programmed different modes that vary speed, responsiveness and the drawers’ relationship to each other.