Evolution Of An Idea
My project started as an idea on the first day of class. I wanted to do something with fire and one of my favorite tricks of aerodynamics is the Venturi effect. I sketched out some ideas I had including using the flame to spin a mobile similar to old nativity sets.
Eventually I settled on wanting to use the Venturi effect to make the flame larger and more chaotic than it would be normally. The effect works by having a high speed stream of air “grab” more air and speed it up.
I started experimenting with how to get the Venturi effect at this scale. My maquette was made out of a used 2 liter soda bottle that I cut up and spaced out on popsicle sticks. I tested how the flame reacted to different spacings. I used vegetable oil at first and tested with Isopropyl Alcohol. I could change the spacing by unsticking the tape and re-sticking it at different heights. I was hopeful that I could use plastic as the tube walls, but after some more tests with the Iso, the plastic was getting very squishy and I wasn’t comfortable using it for the final project.
Once I had tested on the small scale I ordered my final materials. I went with a small camping stove as my flame source. I chose this as I knew it would work reliably, and be fairly easy to throttle. For the tube I purchased a glass hurricane candle sheath. This began the most frustrating part of the project, waiting.
When first purchased the parts claimed to arrive a short 3 days later, however, as the days went by I did not receive any shipping confirmations. On the fourth day of waiting I checked my order history, and it claimed that the parts would now be shipping the next day, with an estimated arrival of the following Thursday. This delay lost me about a week of time in which there wasn’t much I could do, everything depended on the actual sizes of these parts, and I didn’t trust their amazon listing dimensions to be super accurate .
Finally, Thursday arrived and the parts were in the mailroom. I immediately began experimenting with the nozzle and tube. Disaster had struck however. Because of how the stove diffuser worked, I couldn’t get a reliable Venturi effect with the tube. In addition, it was incredibly hard to test with the tube as I needed a more sturdy way to hold it above the stove. I lost the photos, but I was using a cut up cardboard box that was quite rickety and certainly a safety hazard.
That left me with the last task. Creating the obelisk on which the stove/tube assembly would sit. I had initially 3d modeled a mock-up for my concept and was able to adjust some of the values to get it sized for my final components. I liked the general theme I had created in the model, but I also knew that the number of spines on the side was going to be a problem to actually create in the real world. I was going to need to simplify.
I chose to make the sides each have only one spine, but make each side have a different length. This would make manufacture and assembly simpler and more likely to be successful.
All I had to do now was laser cut the plywood I had purchased into the shapes I needed, then assemble and paint, surely that couldn’t be that hard?
All of the work was completed in the WPI Makerspace and I’d like the thank the students who were working there in the evenings for being so accommodating. After copious amounts of wood and hot glue, the tower was complete. At this point I just needed to paint, and permanently attach the spines. I had purchased white and gold spray paint and headed out to an unused parking lot to paint the pieces. Unfortunately, as I was trying to paint the base and spines, I discovered just how cold Autumn evenings in Worcester get, and the paint wasn’t loving it either. Despite this, after a good deal of work getting the paint to stick and dry it was done.
https://erz0.b-cdn.net/images/product_images/highres_images/3-Tier-Pyramid-Nativity-Scene-Natural-Wood-38-cm-15-inch-1434365551__4019967137212_05-13-721_13721_w.jpg
https://marketplace.canva.com/EAF23Ycnpko/1/0/1600w/canva-modern-minimalistic-monthly-planner-september-2024-calendar-ai5JO355I1I.jpg
https://ncs.io/Worship?_gl=1*6b0utc*_up*MQ..*_ga*MTUyOTY5ODIzOS4xNzI4NzA0MjYw*_ga_PFS54FR7NV*MTcyODcwNDI1OS4xLjAuMTcyODcwNDI1OS4wLjAuMA..
It has been an interesting journey from the first ideas to the final product. Not everything worked on my first try, and fighting amazon shipping gave the project a little extra stress right in the middle. However, I am happy with the end result and it was very satisfying to venture into Light Art.