Dia de los Muertos celebrations are traditionally held on November 1st and 2nd, and extend all over the
state of Texas. Since I moved from
south Texas to central Texas, I have
personally been to quite a few of
these amazingly fun events in and
around Austin. In the last few years, a
talented artist and good friend of
mine by the name of Marvin Niebuhr
has made it a habit to bring some of
his amazing kinetic art creations to
some of the local events.
He has created elaborate
costumes and sets with many different
displays that reflected the Dia de los
Muertos feel. He also started
organizing his own party and show
with audience members participating
in live music jam sessions as all of his
kinetic art displays filled out the stage
show I have been lucky enough to be
both an invitee and participant. This
year, he asked for my help in creating
a new art piece. He wanted to
animate a set of three skeleton
dancers to be featured at this year’s
Dia le los Muertos review at the
Marcos Caliente Theater in Dripping
Springs, TX.
He showed me some of his initial
art pieces (Figure 1) and began to
describe the motions he envisioned
for the piece. Essentially, he wanted
the motions to randomly go in and
out of synchronization with the
background music. At first, I began to
evaluate using a microcontroller to
drive an arrangement of servo motors
or to move the skeletons using a
pseudo random algorithm. As part of
the testing, we stumbled upon a way
to create pseudo random motions
with an extremely simple crank
mechanism and using only a single
motor per skeleton.
Apophe ... what?
The fascinating part about this is
September 2014 55
FIGURE 1. Laser cut foam core
skeletonprototypes.
FIGURE 3. Assembled Tamiya
gearbox mountedon the
guitarplayer skeleton.
FIGURE2. Tamiya electricmotor
gearbox kit.
FIGURE 5.
Cable clamp
set yields
three
horseshoe
shaped
bolts and
matching
nuts.
FIGURE4. ParallaxStingray high
torque/low speedgearheadwheel
motor.
Purposeful seeming animation
using motors ... and psychology!
FIGURE 6.
Patio door
rollers
with ball-bearings
and
nut/bolt
set.
