Rough Seas

Feb.'17 - Mar.'17

This sculpture is a team project, made for Introduction to Mechanical Prototyping, a hands-on, industrially-graded course heavily reliant on machining & CAD.


We were tasked to power the entire sculpture using a single motor and, within the sculpture, we were to include all known structures, joints, fasteners, and transmissions.

Executive Summary

"More than 4 million Syrians have been forced to evacuate their homes to escape the ongoing armed conflict in their country. Hundreds of thousands of people risk their lives by crossing the Mediterranean Sea in hopes of reaching safety. 

Our sculpture aims to raise awareness of the war's effects by capturing a brief moment of refugees fleeing in a boat. The boat's motion is dictated by two cams connected to followers attached at the ends of the boat, which is paired by waves crashing into the boat via a four bar linkage. The kinetic sculpture is supported by a painted base that displays the tumultuous sea."

In our mechanical sculpture, we elected to include most of the required joints in our base as well as the boat we 3D printed. The boat itself was too large to print as a whole, so we broke it down into two sections that jointed together. On the boat, we also printed a hinge mechanism that allowed a pin to be put through and connect the boat to cam followers. The followers would run off cams rotating on a d-shaft powered by a pulley. The d-shaft, in turn, would power a perpendicular shaft that powered a 4-bar linkage design moving in a continuous circular motion, which connects to waves that reveal themselves above waves made as part of our base.

Technical Report:

Linked to the PDF is a (image-heavy) technical report explaining, in further detail, the individual components of our mechanical sculpture.