Kinetic Creatures Cardboard Robots | TechNewsDaily.com
A designer-artist couple from Portland, Ore., figured out how to create walking robotic animals — an elephant, a rhino and a giraffe — using nothing but paper.
Lucas Ainsworth, an industrial designer working at Intel, and Alyssa Hamel, a public-school art teacher, took their inspiration from Dutch artist Theo Jansen. His Strandbeest (beach animal) creations are giant mechanical contraptions — in part made from waste, including plastic bottles — that harness wind power to walk on their own.
What are Kinetic Creatures? | Kinetic Creatures
The kits were prototyped, developed and are currently made using a laser cutter, but it takes over two hours and expensive laser-time to build each kit. Now that the designs are done, we are launching a Kickstarter project to cast the patterns onto die-cut-tools at a local cardboard manufacturing facility in Portland, OR. Using a die-press, the time-per-kit comes way down. That means we will be able to share the Kinetic Creatures, using sustainable materials and 100% local manufacturing, with hundreds of Makers and art students.
Kinetic Creatures by Lucas Ainsworth & Alyssa Hamel — Kickstarter
Kinetic Creatures also...
encourage people to build with their hands, minds and imagination. Use sustainable and recyclable materials and support local manufacturing.
Kinetic Creatures takes a complex mechanical linkage, popularized in Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest, and makes it accessible through an easy assembly and friendly cardboard form.
A collaboration between Alyssa- a Visual Arts Teacher and Artist and Lucas- an Industrial Designer, the Kinetic Creatures are intended to encourage building and thinking creatively at home and in the classroom.
Related
