This sound sculpture was a month and a half long design project in a group of four for my class Mechanical Prototyping. We started by spending about a week ideating and making sketches, then started CADing out our designs with two design reviews mixed in. We finished the project by spending about a week fabricating all of the components in the shop and then assembling the sound sculpture.
The goal of this sound sculpture was to create the sounds and feelings of a thunderstorm. We isolated two sounds which were key to this effect. The sound of constant rain, and the sound of thunder which breaks through the otherwise calmer sound. The sound of rain we designed to be created by a rain curtain of acrylic rain drops which we moved back and forth with a scotch yoke. The idea of thunder was at the heart of our design and used a series of mechanisms to create the intermittent sound we desired. The sound itself is created by a thunder tube, which in turn is connected to a slide crank and Geneva wheel.
Beyond the sounds we also were focused on creating a visual setting that would make the viewer feel engrossed by the storm. One way we did this was through purely aesthetic elements such as the clouds and mountains. I also personally was focused on designing a set of two ten bar linkages which would move a whole forest of trees as they get blown over by the storm's wind. These linkages resemble a more complex 4 bar linkage and are connected to each other by two gears. All three of the core mechanisms of this sculpture are connected by a chain drive which is powered by a dc motor. The last design element I added to make the thunderstorm feel more complete. It is a piece of clear acrylic lasercut like lightning that is set behind the rain curtain. There is a set of LEDs along the top of the acrylic and using an Arduino they are flashed with a random delay.
Final Project
Final CAD Render
Underlying box structure
2x Ten bar tree linkage I designed
Lasercut and painted tree
Thunderetube mechanism which I co-designed. Causes intermittent shaking of the tube through the use of a geneva wheel, slide crank and gear ratio.
Acyrlic lighting which lights up sporadically through the use of an LED and an Arduino Nano
Scotch Yoke mechanism to move rain curtain back and forh
CAD of rain curtain
Technical drawing of a bearing plate I machined out of aluminum
Full assembly drawing