May 2022 – Eadin’s Documentation Blog

Partner：Robin Xie （Immersive Art）

We chose a relatively brave and broad concept for this project. Initially we started from the zen aesthetics and traditional Chinese philosophy that examines the relationship between our inner heart and the outside world. Later, developing on the interrelationship of inner and outer world, we focused on how to represent and visualize the flow in-between, and the ultimate key element is water.

Because we are imitating the actual physical sculpture, I didn’t think the visual presentation is enough, so I tried recording and editing some sounds of water with my mug and water bottle. Although it’s low-class and artificial, we can somewhat get how the thing would work.

It seems that doing 3D modeling gives us more freedom to imagine and expand the sculpture, and my idea would be pretty hard to accomplish offline. Therefore I want to make sure that the idea is at least doable. So I added balancing weight and did some VERY ROUGH calculation about rotation torque.

*After Inmi’s reminder I realize a DC motor is better in this case. I chose stepper initially because I didn’t find a suitable DC online, but there actually is.

*I don’t think I comprehend the motor-load physics completely. But the following DC can have up to a rated torque of 15 kg.cm and locked-rotor torque of 90kg.cm just as an example.

To realize the satisfying visual result in blender, a lot of self-learning and trial and error were done. I also paid for an online rendering service because my own laptop would burn rendering this animation and it would cost years. Anyway I like the final result very much.

Some failure and discarded results: