Tag Archives: kinetic

Modern take on disco balls brings kinetic panel with 25 lights

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Disco balls were a staple of the clubbing scene from the 70s until 90s or until discos were not popular anymore. If you ask kids these days, they probably cannot tell you what an actual mirror ball looks like, unless they’re into all of these “nostalgic” things. Since we’re in a different era, the disco ball is also probably due for a comeback or even a rebirth.

Designer: Studio Élémentaires

For a design studio that has “Light + Movement” as its motto, you can expect a different kind of disco ball. Studio Élémentaires designed Flasher which looks like a modernist take on the disco ball, taking inspiration from the stage spotlights we see in concerts and plays. The movement of the light source adds to the kinetic and hypnotic beauty of this light fixture meant to light up stages and spaces.

Basically you get a large panel-like 25-light grid with 25 perforated discs. These discs move around in continuous motion but in different directions and timing. The lights flash continuously, appearing and disappearing “in vivid chiaroscuro contrast”. The panel itself has a monochromatic look and the high shine aluminum plates give it a shining appearance. There are also pulleys, belt paths, and bearings involved in the structure.

What the renders fail to show is the actual effect of this kinetic lighting on the space that it’s lighting. But I can just imagine that it is not for those that are affected with flashing strobe lights or even those that have vertigo.

The post Modern take on disco balls brings kinetic panel with 25 lights first appeared on Yanko Design.

This delicate glass lamp invites you to touch and move it to actually use it

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When faced with something fine and intricate, our initial and natural reaction would be to stay at a safe distance to look but not touch. Almost like snowflakes, these things of beauty risk being destroyed if not handled properly, which probably applies to the majority of us. There are, however, some rather seemingly fragile objects that do urge you to touch them, maybe even risk moving them, to fully enjoy and appreciate their design or even utilize their features. That is definitely the case with this rather creative and elegant glass lamp that is both beautiful to behold as well as to touch. In fact, you need to move it around if you actually want to dim or brighten the lamp.

Designer: kaschkasch

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Glass is a material that has attractive visual and tactile properties, usually depending on what it’s mixed with. It can be clear, opaque, smooth, or textured, all of which give it a rather sophisticated character. While there are more durable forms of glass that don’t shatter at the slightest drop, glass normally has this air of fragility and delicacy that would probably scare off most people from even coming close to it. In sharp contrast, Bolita makes forming a tactile relationship necessary to using this table lamp, encouraging an almost playful approach to using it.

Bolita is comprised of two equally striking minimalist pieces. The actual lamp itself is a disc with a hole in the middle where the LED light shines through. The more conspicuous of the duo, though, is the glass sphere that sits on top, diffusing the light going into it and acting as the kinetic interface to the table lamp. Even when turned off, the lamp is already an attractive decor for your coffee table or drawer. The real magical experience, however, happens when you start moving that glass sphere.

The lamp has no knob or slider to adjust the lamp’s intensity. Instead, you slide the glass sphere around the disc, rather carefully perhaps, to do that. The closer it is to the edges, the dimmer the light gets. Put it at the exact center, and you’ll get the brightest setting. In a way, the sphere acts like a cover, where the light aperture gets eclipsed by the glass’s body as it moves around.

Bolita’s unique interface is rather ingenious, not only in its technical implementation but also in its intention. It puts the light on the sense of touch, something that is often neglected and taken for granted in a visual-centric world. Rather than warning people to stay away, it invites a playful attitude that gets rewarded with the ability to set the light to your desired level.

The post This delicate glass lamp invites you to touch and move it to actually use it first appeared on Yanko Design.

Carving and Build a Kinetic Whale Sculpture: A Whale of a Good Time

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Have you always dreamed of building your own wooden whale kinetic sculpture? Who hasn’t? It’s one of the dreams that unifies humanity. And thankfully, photographer and artist Sylvain Gautier documented the process in which he built this particular model, so you can follow along and build your own. Or fail horribly and wind up with a bunch of blood-stained kindling as I did.

There’s a six-and-a-half-minute short version of the build video (above) for those of you with some existing knowledge of carving and building who only need the basics to get started, but there’s also a 26-minute extended version (below) for those of you who need their hand held a little more. Honestly, I don’t even think a six-hour version could have helped me.

I absolutely adore stuff like this – I’m a huge fan of whimsy. As an added bonus, Sylvain created a 10-hour looping video (below) of him cranking the sculpture and the whale swimming. So relaxing. I’m four hours in, and it just keeps getting better and better.

[via GeeksAreSexy]

This origami engineered chess board unfolds in the most oddly-satisfying way. Watch the video!

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We can’t stop watching the magnetic and compact chess board’s video. It has self-centering and stores all the pieces securely. The chess pieces are as custom as well functionally tactile just like the board’s clever underlying mechanism. You can “feel” the center of each square on the solid walnut playing surface. Most importantly, the pieces remain arranged while the set pivots into its playing configuration.

The designers explain, “Weighing in at almost eight pounds, the LE1 set carries a solid walnut playing surface in a precision-machined, black-anodized aluminum chassis. Four integrated panels are joined using brushed stainless steel hardware in an origami-inspired mechanism that can dynamically transition between storage, setup, and playing states. Self-centering on the playing surface and securely stored piece trays, our custom magnetic chess pieces are CNC machined from solid blocks of Dymalux, a resin-infused birch laminate normally reserved for high-touch objects like knife handles, jewelry, and pistol grips. The force of their magnetic base is subtle, leaving play uninterrupted and feeling more like additional piece weighting. Thanks to the set’s single degree of freedom playing configuration which is constrained by its planar resting surface, even with its cantilevered corners, it feels as solid and square as the surface below it.”

“I’ve heard that the Knight is a good measure of the quality of a chess set. Having acquired an impractical number of wooden chess pieces over the last two years, I can confidently say that the level of detail we’ve managed to achieve with our CNC-machined Dymalux Knights is unparalleled amongst other wood pieces. Muscle tone, eyebrows, nostrils, a flowing mane, you can even look this gift horse in its tiny little mouth. Not to be outdone, the Kings are topped off with polished stainless steel crosses. All of these features withstand handling thanks to the impressive durability of Dymalux’s resin-infused birch laminate. No wonder it’s normally used for knife handles, pistol grips, and wood jewelry.”

 Each piece is CNC machined from a solid block of Dymalux, a resin-infused birch laminate normally reserved for high-touch objects like knife handles, jewelry, and pistol grips for maximum shelf life and durability. The force of the magnetic base is subtle, leaving play uninterrupted and feeling more like additional piece weighting. It must literally be therapeutic for Monica Geller, a Virgo, or someone who loves staying organized to pack this set up after a match!

Designer: Degrees of Freedom

Click Here to Buy Now!









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This multi-hinge kinetic cabinet-door opens in the most unusual style!

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Built out by YouTuber and woodwork craftsman Dekay’s Crafts, the ‘kinetic scissor door’ uses a series of folding segments to open in an absolutely eye-catching way. Most wooden doors either open on a single hinge, or a sliding rail, but Dekay’s scissor door fragments into 6 different pieces as it opens, and joins back into a flat panel when closed.

You can check out the video above to see how Dekay built out this unique ‘kinetic scissor door’, or just scroll down to see the door in action below!

The unusual door uses a total of 6 hinges that allow the door to fragment into 6 pieces and reassemble when either completely open or closed. It’s honestly one of the most pleasing little interactions I’ve seen and really gives a simple cabinet a new lease of life. The cabinet’s door sports diagonal cuts running 45° across, and from what I gather, the entire door is shaped to be a 2:1 rectangle.

Anyone familiar with Klemens Torggler’s Evolution Door from 2013 may recognize this unique format. Instead of a simple panel that swings or slides open, both Torggler’s Evolution Door and Dekay’s Scissor Door split and ‘fold’ open. There’s obviously no overarching functional benefit to such a door, but it’s definitely much more interactive and visually pleasing!

Designer: Dekay’s Crafts

Self-charging pacemakers are powered by patients’ heartbeats

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Millions of people around the world depend on pacemakers, defibrillators and other life-saving implantable devices. The problem is, their batteries need to be replaced every five to ten years, requiring surgery that's not only expensive, but carries...

This 3D printed hourglass should get a design award!

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The beauty of the sand-hourglass is the way you see the sand travel grain by grain downwards. It’s pretty, no doubt, but from an experience level, it gives you the basic idea of a minute, and nothing more. You can’t count down the minute because the sand’s flow is continuous, not broken up into seconds, and more importantly, if you take your eyes off the hourglass, there’s no way of knowing when the minute is up. It’s purely a visual experience.

The Chrolo, on the other hand, is a sheer work of art and a feat of engineering. It also plugs all the experience gaps you’d face with the sand-vial hourglass. The 3D printed structure provides a path for a ball-bearing to slide down, step by step, utilizing gravity just like the sand-hourglass does… but each individual slide accounts for a single second (so there are 59 slides in total), and every time the ball-bearing drops from one slide to another, it makes a tick sound that mimics a clock, so you can count down the seconds as you go. It also means you don’t need to keep your eye on the hourglass as it operates.

The ball-bearing takes exactly 60 seconds to complete its downward journey, indicating the completion of a full minute. It furthers its audio-visual experience with a brass ring at the bottom, which the ball collides against after 59 ticks. The collision results in a satisfying ‘ting’sound, indicating the completion of a minute. If you want to add more minutes, just repeat the process by adding another ball bearing at the top the minute you hear the ‘ting’!

The Chrolo’s intricate, engineered-to-precision design is made entirely through STL 3D-printing (where a resin is cured using UV light), which ensures that each part is built accurately, without the need to sand, prime, or paint the product afterward. Its spiral-staircase shape comes after multiple iterations (initial concepts looked like a regular flight of steps). The spiral staircase was arrived at after multiple iterations. It occupies a smaller amount of space while also giving the ball-bearing a literal journey to go through. It’s fun to watch the ball-bearing go to and fro, almost like a pendulum, on each stair before dropping with a satisfying ‘tick’ sound. I can’t think of a more beautiful, multisensorial, and apt way to indicate the passing of a minute!

Designer: Sparkpluck

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Star Wars Trench Run LEGO Sculpture: Stay on Target!

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This animated LEGO scene depicts Darth Vader’s TIE fighter chasing Luke’s X-wing during the Death Star trench run in A New Hope. It is both calming and mesmerizing. Jason Allemann built this kinetic sculpture and it is a super cool desk toy that I need in my life.

Jason used moving LEGO Technic parts that are hidden just below the surface to make the ships rock back and forth. There are also a pair of ion cannons that move as he turns the crank. I just love this piece. It’s so simple and elegant. You might say it’s a LEGO build for a more civilized age.

The model is an alternate version of another set, “Pursuit of Flight,” that Allemann has shared to the LEGO Ideas site. That sculpture has a pair of WW1 fighter planes instead of Star Wars ships.

Actually, idea would work for any ship chasing another. You could have a jet chasing a UFO, or the Enterprise chasing a Klingon ship and so on. Maybe he could make it so you can replace the ships at will. There’s no doubt about it, Jason is super talented and has an amazing geek mind.

[via Gizmodo]

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