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Davinci Machine

 

This was a school project to create a coffee-table Davinci-styled machine.  In conjunction with two other industrial design students, we picked our theme for the project as time and ruins.  The machine was designed as a complex representation of time, with 12 hands and 12 columns to signify a clock.  The main structure and all its edges are rounded, as time is often represented as a circle.  Wood was chosen as the medium for construction to be accurate to Davincis’ time period, and the finished machine was entirely hand made.  The hardware was varied between brass, copper and steel to give the machine some color.  A small hand-turned flywheel drives a leather belt, which turns a much larger flywheel under the clock face, which rotates a brass axle.  This axle turns the clock hands and knocks over the columns in sequence.  Time can be told by counting the standing columns (3 standing columns represents 3:00).  The hands are strung with guitar strings, which are plucked as they rotate, to give an audible signal of the changing of hours.  The machine can be geared to run in real time by an electric motor, or hand turned to quickly go through all 12 hours.

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