How This Guy Builds Mesmerizing Kinetic Sculptures | Obsessed | WIRED

I'd like it to be relaxing calming and amusing I would like people to be a little bit amazed to figure out how they work to solve the problem of how it works my name is David Roy I'm a kinetic sculptor I've been doing it for in excess of 40 years Roy's kinetic sculptures are mesmerizing feat of artistry and engineering a single wine can provide hours of entertainment some of them create tension that some of them are just something you can sit like you would watch a fire and just get lost in the flames and he's made a lot of them over the years the different designs there's over 300 in the number of pieces because I make additions is seven thousand something like that each one of Roy's pieces is entirely mechanically driven no motors no electronics and his degree in physics comes in handy when explaining how they work you start with an energy source I use a constant force spring now I initially started with a weight Drive each is controlled by what's called an escapement mechanism a device that releases energy incrementally it's similar to what you might find inside a clock so the mechanism initially is locked so that the weight can't fall a spring can't unwind when that mechanism is unlocked it releases a bit of energy which in turn moves a second device often a rotating wheel that device creates motion but it also retractors the escapement releasing a bit more energy and restarting the cycle and that's the essence of an escapement controlled release of energy that's self-sustaining until it runs out of energy and you have to wind it up and nothing is perpetual lastly there is a large group of people who say is it perpetual motion and of course I was schooled in physics and they know that that isn't possible so they're not one of the key laws of physics is the conservation of energy which basically says the amount of energy you put into a system is exactly the amount you get out one way or another the user puts energy in by winding them up and then the energy comes out in the motion which is the part I want but another way is in the sounds that takes energy to create the sound but most of it a lot of it gets lost in heat due to friction where the things are rotating and rubbing Roy is tinkered with different mechanisms and materials to try to curtail some of that energy loss so that's where it appears perpetual only because I worked really hard to reduce friction and sound Roy's always had a strong grasp of the science and the mechanics behind his work but he needed a little help with the artistry I mean he can make a neat thing but you have to make it work visually and that was probably the hardest for me to learn over the years and that was my my mentor and tutor of my wife in fact it was David's wife Margie who sparked his initial interest in kinetic sculpture Margie was a sculpture major at the Rhode Island School of Design and she made project that is two cogs and wouldn't chain and she put it on the wall and she said this is my sculpture and I said you can make a machine and call it a sculpture and she looked at me she said of course nice okay so that was that idea that you could make wooden machines in column sculpture that totally reach annals my creative ideas from the science world the engineering world to the art world and it was all brand-new and very exciting and what started as a hobby quickly became a full-fledged business most people and I have to admit I didn't think it was a long-term thing it was something we were doing because we could we had no obligations and I was playing I was having a great time decades later Roy is still making and selling kinetic sculptures and its continued passion is due to one thing I like to solve problems that I dream up I created the first sculptures and then they were noisy and annoying and I wanted to make him quiet so then I had to develop a mechanism that was quiet and he did in a piece called anticipation but the problem-solving didn't stop there getting longer run times has been a one of the challenges that I enjoy the first pieces they ran for 20 minutes 25 minutes when I got that up to an hour I thought I was in nirvana and then it got to three hours this is over years this didn't happen quickly the current piece the longest one I've run is probably runs for 48 hours 50 hours there's a cost to these long runtimes what gets you there really long runtimes is really slow motion which you know it can be nice but it just isn't as entertaining in fact of another challenge Roy is thought for himself over the years to get his sculptures to produce all kinds of different motion the initial ones were simple motion just creating the motion as I gained control I developed ones that create patterns and optical patterns and those basically two circular wheels going opposite directions or the same direction depending on the pattern the next category that came were more the floating motion I call that the bird motion and that's where you'll get a motion up and down back and forth but straight-line motion or spiral motion mixed amongst those I've tried to do other ones that create randomness so that your optical pattern doesn't stay the same it changes these days Roy is focused on creating chaotic motion in his pieces chaotic motion is motion that changes at unpredictable intervals so it can go fast it can go slow but you can't tell when that's gonna happen and so chaotic motion that's a term it's well defined it's used in physics it's used in engineering but to try to use it in art and to create a chaotic motion is extremely challenging Roy was able to deliberately create chaotic motion for the first time a few years ago and a piece aptly named chaos and I'm working in other ones now trying to use what I learned from that and to push the envelope of well what can I do next building one of these sculptures can be a slow and complicated process the initial designs float around in my head so there's a lot of daydreaming a lot thinking next ROI sketches out his design on computer I draw an illustrator and I animate usually in Adobe After Effects animating the piece before building it helps Roy understand what the sculptures patterns will look like it's also another program it's called working model I use it to calculate the center of mass of complicated arrangements of parts that calculation is critical to getting the balance right so that the sculpture moves in the intended way the trouble with the program is it doesn't exist anymore at least it doesn't for Mac there haven't been a current version for years but Roy is a workaround I buy really old eye books which are the last computers that would run it so that is actually a key program but it's one I live in fear that all my old computers are gonna die one day and it won't work anymore and then probably retired at that point Roy tinker's in these computer programs until he's satisfied with the overall design then he sends a file over to a local woodworker who cuts out some of the individual parts on a CNC machine the rest of it all has to be done by hand the basic tools are drill press Sanders and bandsaw and then there's all kinds of hand tools hammers and hand drills and all of that Roy uses these tools to build small parts like pulleys and levers as well as to smooth out and finish off the larger machine cut pieces once all the pieces are finished and stained Roy then assembles and tests the sculptures all of the large wooden parts have to be balanced because wood is not uniform I have developed techniques there used tiny little brass weights that are embedded in the back to get things to balance the assembly probably is where I spend most time and then also very important is testing so I have large walls I put up the sculptures and I leave them running for days and I want to get all the bugs out before a customer gets it so testing is also a big part of the assembly and making process one of Roy's new sculptures is in this phase of production he's been using tape and small press waits to tinker with the bounce eventually I get an intuitive feel but the only way to get that by spending hours adding weight then standing and staring at it my wife laughs I just stand around and stare at sculptures all day but that's how I learn and get a feel for what they need after a sculpture is assembled perfectly balanced in quality control there's still one final step so a big part of the design and the work is naming and we have a list that we have kept of all different names that we've thought of over the years must have two or three hundred names now we've used two or three hundred names already when a new son-in-law joined the family he was fresh to the game and he was good he got several right off the bat but its naming is difficult from designing to tinkering to naming the entire process can take a while I have had pieces that started and took over a year more some I put aside because they couldn't get what I liked and then went back to him after a while and then some I have an idea and it comes out and it comes out right and those are kind of boring because they just worked and while it's frustrating when things don't work Roy recognizes that it's all part of the process the frustration is kind of nice to have because it makes the joy after better but one follows the other that I don't think I've ever done a piece where I haven't been disappointed in it initially and then had to work through that and try to figure it out and Roy's passion for finding creative solutions isn't flowing down anytime soon I had a brother-in-law who when we started this he said this is great but you're gonna run out of ideas and then what are you gonna do and that was 40 years ago it has just been one thing after another I thought I would run out but I'm you know pushing 70 years old and there's still lots of that I want to do so it's because of the problems I like to solve the problems [Music]

Channel: WIRED

Views: 6,396,830

Rating: 4.9546161 out of 5

Keywords: art, kinetic sculpture, perpetual motion, physics, mechanical, mesmerizing art, david roy, david c. roy, woodworker, david roy art, kinetic sculptures wired, obsessed, wired obsessed, obsessed wired, obsessed kinetic sculptures, moving art, moving scultpures, kinetic sculptures art, david c roy art, david c roy obsessed, mesmerizing, mesmerizing sculpture, satisfying art, satisfying sculpture, calming art, calming sculpture, physicist, sculptures, wooden sculpture, wired

Id: ROP45rjvOHg

Length: 10min 45sec (645 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/klavin1]

About 2,500 to 4,000 dollars for anyone wondering. Here's his website

[u/bikerholic]

VM might help his technical dilemma.

[u/Lev_Astov]

Ugh, of course he uses Working Model 2D. There's probably a better replacement out there, but we were still stuck using that at an engineering firm I worked at a few years ago. Painfully outdated and broken, but very powerful.

[u/fityfive]

I want to be more like this guy. He is really just great.

[u/jwccs46]

Amazing

[u/payed_moderator]

Why do I hate the journalists voice in the background?

[u/uufinder]

Is it possible for fusion 360 to simulate the movement/momentum?

[u/JamesBerridge]

Neat!