recent work
Recent changes at the site:
Bore Soliton Splash MINI! (oct 19th 2011).
Onno Bokhove designed a 1 to 20 model of the bore soliton splash. We built it in my studio. And it works.
Direct link to youtube movie here
FabLab Enschede
I'm working now as coordinator for FabLab Enschede
triangulations
Having my degree does not mean that i am only designing things. Here a view of the studio where presently construction work for Jonas Samson is done. It is a support structure for a light sculpture that will hang on a wall at the Twente University. All triangles will be connected in a later phase and form a truss like structure, suspended at six points so the construction does not become too heavy.
graduated march 4th
March 4th Wout Zweers graduated at the Twente University as master of science - industrial design engineer with high marks.
The examination board especially stated that he is an outstanding designer who is very capable in his work.
| Sustainable lighting for the New Way of Working. Wout Zweers, Master's candidate at the University of Twente's Industrial Design Engineering programme presents his graduation project for the interior design of the New Office. The project is a lamp design for a company that equips offices for the new way of working. Notions of the worker as an individual and the personalisation of the workplace were key to this design. Another important requirement of the project was sustainability. Light is one aspect of this. During the last phase of his Master's study Wout researched the possibilities and requirements of lighting. This information was used as the basis of the design and for the working prototype for the lamp's armature. The colloquium will outline the lamp's design, its surface patterns, construction (which is orientated to sheet materials) and CNC (Computer numerical control) manufacturing, as well as the use, cooling and other potentials for LED lighting.
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Duurzame verlichting voor het nieuwe werken. Wout Zweers (Industrial Design Engineering) presenteert zijn afstudeerwerk voor de inrichting van het nieuwe kantoor. Voor een bedrijf dat kantoren inricht is een verlichting ontworpen voor het nieuwe werken. De individuele werknemer staat hierbij centraal, persoonlijke uitstraling van de werkplek is belangrijk en duurzaamheid is een vereiste. Licht is hierbij een van de aspecten. Gedurende het afstuderen is onderzocht welke mogelijkheden en eisen er zijn voor verlichting. Aan de hand hiervan is een ontwerp en een werkend prototype gemaakt voor een armatuur. Tijdens het colloquium zullen de vormgeving en oppervlaktepatronen, de constructie welke gericht is op plaatmateriaal en cnc-bewerkingen en het gebruik, koeling en mogelijkheden van LEDs worden toegelicht. |
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Wout Zweers signing his degree certificate Behind him a generated turing pattern and the prototype |
If you're interested: graduation thesis files can be downloaded here
magnetic hinge
Needed: a pivoting point for a rod that stirs water, driven by a motor that sometimes, accidentally, resets to a point outside the range of the pivot.
A clever idea by Anthony Thornton (can't we use a magnet?) to prevent damage was worked out into an elegant solution:
What is this? It's a pendulum. The vertical constuction is pushed and pulled by the rod on the topleft, and it rolls over the cylinders on the metal profile in the middle. The steel cylinders are pulled tightly to the flat magnets and do not slide, only roll and give very little friction (steel on steel rolling friction is low, like a trainwheel on rails). The metal rod that points downward oscillates from left to right and back and makes waves in the water (lower part of the picture)
If the force is too high the construction will be pushed or pulled of the magnet. It can be replaced easily. It's also very convenient for quick changes, just lift the pivoting construction. The construction appaers to be self-adjusting and surprisingly there is no sliding at all, the cylinders roll perfectly over the magnets.
Good principle for other applications. Maybe for attaching a lamp? Low voltage electricity may run through the magnets, no screws needed, a portable lamp with various bases or so? Or just nice to play with, magnets do have some magical component.
It's also an example of clever ideas such as existing in theater, workplaces that could be transferred to ondustrial design or other larger scale applications. Of course this crude, engineer solution has to be redesigned then, otherwise the market will be very limited. Reduce it to the interesting thing, the magnetic action. The rest should be kind of invisible, subconciously perceived but not disturbing the magical function.
Also nice: find the natural frequencies of the pendulum. Hi Newton! It can be expected be around SQRT (g / distance to center of gravity of the pendulum to the pivot point), that's around 14 rad/second, or about 2.2 Hz. The frequencies of the waves are (in this experiment) around 1.2 - 1.5 Hz. Around 2-3 Hz the hinge did break. Resonance? Or just too much force on the magnet? So if we want higher wave frequencies the pivot length should maybe be changed to prevent this or we need another connection or fixed bearing. There is also the vibration of the rod, but it's frequency is higher due to the stiffness of the used material (stainless steel).
I don't care for now. It works good enough to use it at the desired frequencies. More evaluation may be done by some of the students that will work with this? This will probably be usefull to understand some of the results.
more radiolaria
Valerie Zwart gave me a sketch of a polygon ( a rhombicosidodecahedron) and i made a 3D model of a polygon of it. It consists of equal-sided triangles, squares and pentagrams. It reminded me of radiolaria skeleteons and Buckminsterfullers geodesic dome. I rendered it in a glass-look, vaguely reminding me of Haeckels work. It will be used by Valerie Zwart for making a graphic design. Programs used: Rhino for the 3D structure (3ds file) and Bryce for the rendering of the textures and light.
Here are the .3ds file faces polygon faces (40Kb) and rods polygon rods (8 Mb, many facets). They have the same origine and size, so they can be grouped easily. They are not perfect yet, there are a couple of flaws to improve, however they can be rendered.
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Rhombicosidodecahedron, original picture |
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wireframe elements in rhino |
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rods only in rhino, (made pipes of the wireframe) |
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rods and faces combined, rendered in Bryce with light from behind and low refraction index |
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same, final version made by Valerie Zwart for use in a graphic design |
Construction details
Cooperation with Ecco Luce and Edwin Dertien
Asked by Edwin Dertien and Jonas Samson, who desinged a light wall for the Twente University. They asked me to advice them about the construction of this light object. Here it is visualised in Solid Works. It will hang from the ceiling, since the walls are made of plaster board and cannot support the weight of the glass plates and the frames
Much preparation and calculating the dimensions has already been done (end of januari). Welding of the support construction will start around feb 20th, the studio will be used for a complete test of the construction. When everything is ready and fits well it will be disassembled, transported to the definite location and assembled again.
images: Ecco Luce, copyright Jonas Samson 2011
Details:
How to do it: Make a light weight construction, how to install it quickly and safely, how to build the construction and what materials to use for the frames? It must look good, too and the electricity cables must be out of sight. It's now being worked out, but definitely there is a torque in the structure which must be coped with, it must be made modular, because there will be 64 triangles and making every single triangle differently would be expensive, it must be in parts, so it can be disassembled and transported and also fixed in several smaller parts that will be connected later (how?) The connection of the suspension cables and the ceiling will be a hard thing: it must be 700% reliable, slightly adjustable for compensating the angle and 4 pairs will have to be connected to the ceiling (hanging) or to the wall ( with a bracket, extending to the point straight above the center of gravity of the construction) This demands a lot of theater technician and set design skills: it must be strong, safe and easy to build. It must be affordable. Nice design question. The road to follow: 64 identical frames, which will be joined by short pieces of steel beam that can be welded well and which can be reached properly with the welding gun, can be finished properly and which are stable enough to withstand the torque in the construction. The separate frames can be made by a welding construction quickly, because they are identical a welding robot may be used which has to be programmed only one time or one welding template can be used for manual welding. Safety factor = 7, very high for building standards, but it is rather a theater like construction than a building construction. It must hang nicely, not push agains the wall but not have a gap between the triangles and the wall either. How to do so without having to tweak too much at the location with length of cables? The construction itself offers the solution: design it to hang it more or less vertical and use the fact that it goes around the corner. The leg around the corner can be used as a handle to level it. The whole structure will be divided into four groups, each will have it's own support, start building at the corner and hoist the next part. When it hangs in position it can be bolted to the already hanging one. Connect it with two small bolts, this will be enough to compensate the torque which is left over after hanging it almost vertically right. This way we can work quickly and safely because the parts are manageable and can hang on itself. |
cnc trials in aluminium
Testing the small cnc router : is it possible to work in aluminium with the available CNC router?
Yes, it can be done, but only very, very slowly and carefully. The stepper motors are not strong enough to prevent the digging of the tool into the aluminium. Only very thin layers can be removed at a time (.25mm and a low feeding speed, and even then the router may dig), while applying generous quantities of drill coolant. Back to the hand router, which works much faster. This CNC router is good for wood, foam, plastics, but not for metals, even though the motor itself is strong and fast enough. A good example of the weakest link in the chain. By the way, we used Cambam (a free and a commercial version available) and EMC2, both worked well.
Hot spot
Coming soon: a new experiment of Onno Bokhove: simulation of magma flow in the earth. We already build an insulated room where a cooled container with gelatine will act as the model of the rock. This is under development, we are now looking for a good cooler, maybe we will adjust a portable airco or use some food industry equipment. For now the solution was easy: snow and ice available in large quantities all around the studio. Ice in a tub with a fan blowing air over it was sufficient to cool the cabin.
For the gelatine container a transparant cylinder or box will be used. This will be made without visible seams, we out outsourced this to a plastic processing company which can lasercut the PMMA and glue it together perfecty.
My part was to design and construct the cell together with Onno. We work with simple materials, and recycle as much as possible used woodpanels and lexan insulation panes. We only had to buy some wood (FSC) and the polystyrene foam panels. Because it may get wet rockwool is not usable, it also is not very suitable for a transportable construction.
The cabin is light enough to work in and does not give a claustrofobic feeling thanks to the windows. The whole construction is light and easy to dismantle for transport and storage thanks to theater construction methods with hinges (that can be split) where possible and simple connections with bolts. The dimensions of the construction are as economical as possible to get the most out of the material: standard sizes of 122 and 60 cm are used. All elements are light enough to be handled by one person. A heavy construction was not necessary because it will be used indoor.
afrikamuseum
Together with Andre Boone working on a proposal for mythical sculptures in the Afrikamuseum in Berg en Dal near Nijmegen.
A spider of cortensteel, about 5 meter high. And also a cameleon, a hornbill, rabbit ears, a long snake and a snakes egg. The other sculptures will be made of stainless steel. We submitted the proposal. Now we wait and hope we will get the job.
Also a statical analysis of the spider is made, to find out how thick the steel must be. The factor of safety is 13. A more detailed study will be made to find out where the steel can be thinner. On such a scale that will save much money. For now it is sufficient to know the sculpture will not fail when three kids are using it as a playground.
This week of modelling, cutting paper, folding, scanning the results, converting it into a digital model (the ears) or directly modelling in a solid modeller (the spider) discussing the results with sculptor Andre Boone, working together intensively was also a nice exercise in combining artist skills and engineering / industrial design skills: using paper folding combined with calculating safety and thinking about the production and available technology, it all mixed up pretty well and working this way was quite efficient.
Here's a technical drawing of Anansi, the spider
Inspiration came from African shapes and use of sculpture, especially from West Africa. The collection of the Africa Museum was very usefull.
Images of a spider in stories exist, though they are much more rare than, for example, the hornbill bird. But a huge amount of stories about Anansi exist, in Africa, in the Caraibean and Surinam (Ba Anansi) and folktales in the US. Maybe that's the reason for the scarsity of images: Anansi is an oral concept, the stories are told instead of visual or sculptural. Anansi is a master of the word, not the image. However, some images can be found, such as this spider mask. It follows the African conventions of making sculptures and masks, but it's about 150 years old:
more contemporary images of anansi can be found in theater and literature:
from the oregon shadow theater
as an illustration on Mark B Ropers book Animal Stories
spiders are amore general symbol: think of Louise Bourgeois:
quoted from the telegraph:
"The Spider is an ode to my mother," Louise Bourgeois once said. "She was my best friend. Like a spider, my mother was a weaver... Like spiders, my mother was very clever. Spiders are friendly presences... spiders are helpful and protective, just like my mother."
So maybe more images of the spider could be found in weaving, basket making? Then folk art could be a rice source of images. Is here is a link to a different art history than the (modernistic?) one that quotes so often the african sculpure that inspired artists like picasso, the cubists?
Anybody?
wie van de drie?choose wisely
a chair was needed in a performance, it should look old, used. there was a brown chair available which was not good.
what would be the good one for the theater? the very plain, almost grey one or the blue one?
the answer depends what it is used for. and what the rest of the set looks like.
the blue one was too arty, the brown one was not arty enough, the grey one was exactly right
Pictures of A Cristmas Carol by Jeugdtheater Sonnevanck, performed in De Doelen Rotterdam. As can be seen the set justifies the plain, greyish color instead of the "blue" chair. It merges well with the rest and it picks up the light well. Besides that, it was used in a dreamlike scene (the ghost of christmass comes to Scrooge) and an abstraction works well there: not a realistic thing, but more an outline, a silhouet that can be filled with associations
ledlamp
Started to make new ledluminaires. In the studio small luminaires are tested.They are made of simple means: thin aluminium sheet and profiles, acrylate that's sanded to make it diffuse. Most important is how the light looks and feels while working, reading. After the exploration of the (technical) possibilities of the led lamp it's now time for exploring different lighting qualities of led's. Also took them home, for use as reading lights, as supplement of the daylight. The lighting power of the leds is amazing, especially when the led qualities are used instead of using them as a retrofit for bulbs. It may be possible that with led a different kind of a light plan is possible or even necessary to get the most out of them, compared with tungsten and fluorescent lights.
One of them is really lightweight, and functions well: good cooling, good light quality, easy to hang somewhere because it's so lightweight, not blinding the eyes. And an easy to make construction.
graduation
Industrial Design Engineering at University of Twente
Wout Zweers spends most of his time on graduating in industrial design engineering.
He designed a new lamp for office use. It uses LED technology and has some interesting ways to manipulate the light. Graduation is scheduled around januari 2011.
More about the lamp: scroll down to 2010 ledlamp
premiere pepernotenpietenband
more: scroll down to set design
2010 ledlamp
An innovative, material- and energy friendly, adjustable lamp. A lamp for the new office.
This lamp is an example of the kindof lamp that can be expected within a couple of years in the new office.
It can be used as a test-object or reference for designers and architects that have to check their designs for new offices. Every aspect (construction, cooling, choise of leds, use, material choice regarding ecology and sustainability) is well researched and founded in theory, data and analysis. Even the styling is done with a thorough study of shape, form and association. Bringing it all together, blending it into a good design, required much creativity and intuition.
But it can also be purchased and used in a contemporary office, public spaces or at home.
!pet in Hoogeveen uses it now in their showroom, between design and concept products, for their customers to give them a better idea of these offices. Yes, it's for sale.
The lamp finished in the showroom of !pet in Hoogeveen. The lamp has downlights (warmwhite) for reading or as spotlight, uplight (coolwhite) for diffuse working light reflected against the ceiling and a variable color (RGB) for atmosphere. The lamp is made of bamboo, aluminium, lexan (Polycarbonate) and steel (the circular weights). All lights are dimmable with a remote control.
the lamp at the !pet showroom
testing in the studio
!pet in Hoogeveen asked me to develop a new product for the office. For my graduation i designed a lamp for them that is efficient with energy (leds), material and production (parts can be produced simply, can be separated and recycled), the lamp can be changed or repaired relatively easy and offers more than only light for an office. |
more about designing the lamp here
more about the pattern: part of thesis. (in progress) or scroll down in this page to graduation.
mounting the lamp
assembling led luminaire 2 + 3
And nr 3 is also working. The outside does not look differently, but internally
cable trees make assembly easier and protect the connections..jpg)
The next lamp should have a different way to attach the suspension: an outside thread / bolt connection would work better, or perhaps welded / soldered. Now it slides through a hole which can damage the paint easily. The cable opening is also limited by the present connection. But it should remain compact. Redesign for the production model! Any suggestions?
Checking the temperature in model #2, full power, After 30 minutes the lamp did not get very warm: 32 degrees celcius + 5 for calibration = 37 degrees. Ambient temperature was 17 degree, a difference of 20 . This ensures 120000 hours lifetime for the leds. This temperature was comparable to the test results on a model and calculation of the cooling surface.
Inside the lamp: osram golden dragon and rgb ledstrip (on the left) and the cree led (right)
The (overexposed) photo shows how the light is concentrated. More than 500 lux! The dragon leds emit at 2700K, the color of a normal bulb. Note the banded shade under the chair. When the lamp is not bended about 350 lux (1 meter below the sources) is measured.
set design
designing for the theater: a chair that can support three persons, can move and can be used in various scenes. To be used in a theater show this year and next year
(The PepernotenPieterBand: Wat is er toch met Sinterklaas? A production of RaboTheater Hengelo and jeugdtheater Sonnevanck)
Sketch and first model of a chair for Sinterklaas
rendering and realised chair
rehearsal
about constructing a chair for the theater
Soliton Splash
September 2010
An experiment of Onno Bokhove and Wout Zweers, with Anthony Thornton.
Make a soliton wave splash over the edge. The principle is used in an opening ceremony at the Twente University
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It works. What can we do with it?
a bigger splash
The next step was a full scale test at the new matrix square (O & O plein) at the Twente University
A triplex board became a thick wooden construction, too heavy to lift by hand.
And the result:
example at youtube 32 seconds
the opening
The splash, result of a bore combined with a soliton. Mission accomplished.
A second run was also made, slightly different water depth:this resulted in a double soliton.
The difference in water depth was just 2 cm at a total depth of 41 cm.
Onno is about to get wet feet but he does not know that yet.
(the squares in the water are confetti)
more information (will be extended, pictures and movies of testrun, presentation of Onno Bokhove about Soliton Splash)
gogbot 2010
Due to graduation there was not much time to contribute. But together with Edwin Dertien a little work was made:
Color Chaser, a self propelling, remotely controlled car with a strong lamp that can move. Two color filters give a different atmosphere.
intelligent design
Housestyle design
For Rozendaal ateliers: aim was an expressive, free design for the studio complex that shows the character of art. A logo, flag, banner, nameplate and letter lay-out was designed and execution was supervised (lasercutting, banner and flag making)
roombeek rotors
Sculpture in the water, commissioned by Impact and waterschap Regge en Dinkel
Two of the finished rotors for the sculpture in the water. Stainless steel, polished, mathematical symbols attached, reflecting the sky outside the studio
The rotors perform well, a summer storm in august delivered 149 liters per second, the rotors still turned nicely. But at the normal level of about 5 - 10 liter per second they also work well
more about this rotor, video's
making waves
Assistence to Free Flow Foundation of Onno Bokhove, mathematician: making a wave device (golfgoot)
Hi tech meets low tech: Onno Bokhove and Anthony Thornton making science work.
cnc milling
Testing a small cnc router, milling a turing pattern on foam. Aim was to mill self generated patterns using cheap, open source cnc software.
fietstaxi
in collaboration with Valerie Zwart and Edwin Dertien the bike cab was made: a reconstruction of one of the city bikes that ride in Enschede into an art bike.
It was commissioned by Gemeente Enschede and Imagine fietstaxi's Enschede
2009
Grenswerk 2009:
On two different locations in Enschede Wout Zweers and Edwin Dertien participated with Grenswerk: at the Sonnevanck building and with the fireplotter at the firestation.
op youtube
filmpje fireplotter : printen with fire at grenswerk enschede
filmpje gogbot : drawing in sand at gogbot enschede
Gogbot 2009
Walkman-2: the original walkman has been upgraded: better control hardware and software and a flame-drawing option.
First performance at the Gogbot-2009 festival Enschede NL
Detail of the machine under construction
