SF0 / burnunit / Scale Model

20 + 90 points

Scale Model by Burn Unit, rongo rongo

December 30th, 2007 5:53 PM

INSTRUCTIONS: Reproduce a famous work of art on a scale at least two orders of magnitude different from the original.

When I heard that Burn Unit was going to be in town, I knew we had to do some UoA tasking.

One (locally) famous work of art is Alexander Calder's "Big Sail" and "Little Sail" pair, which are at MIT. Locals call the larger sculpture, which stands 40 ft tall, the Great Sail. There is a story that it was commissioned to solve a little problem posed by the Green Building. This building, which is not actually green, is the tallest building in Cambridge because it has the maximum allowed number of floors (18) and stands on 2-story tall stilts. On extra breezy days, a wind tunnel effect causes the revolving doors set in the stilts to spin wildly. The Great Sail breaks the wind enough that you can get in and out of the doors. The Little Sail is an 8 ft tall intermediate artist's model. As these two sculptures are already a pair reproduced in different scales, they seemed like a good choice for this task. This art smiles.

It was a dark and stormy night when Burn Unit came to town, but we nevertheless headed to MIT. Coincidentally, we found that the students had created two larger-than-life sized games on campus. A giant game of Scrabble was up on the Media Lab building, and a huge Settlers of Catan game was on the dot. (The dot is a round grassy area surrounded by pavement stones between the Green Building and the Great Sail.)

http://sf0.org/media/nuclearpolymer/scrabble33642.jpg

http://sf0.org/media/nuclearpolymer/great-sail33647.jpg

We experienced the Great Sail from a variety of angles, and then went to the Little Sail. Surprise! It was gone, leaving only the plaque in the ground. We deployed our sleuthing skills (involving my husband and the Internet) to discover that the Little Sail had been moved into the lobby of the Media Lab Building, which was locked for the night. We lurked around until we could convince someone entering the building to let us in, and then experienced the Little Sail. You can get a much better feel for the art at this scale. Looking at the Great Sail is like feeling an elephant, in that you can only see glimpses of a face at a time. The Little Sail is a completely human scale.

http://sf0.org/media/nuclearpolymer/lean33650.jpg

Having experienced the art at two scales, we set to work reproducing it.

I returned to the Media Lab Building with a sketch pad and drew the components of the sculpture for later reproduction. Then, I took scissors, paper, and tape and eyeballed the art to put together a rough prototype in 3D to go along with the sketches. Comparing the prototype scale model with the Great Sail, it looks like the build-your-own sail system produces decent reproductions.

The sculpture is primarily made from sheets of flat metal. Working from my sketches and the rough prototype, I drew up a pattern and instructions for a model two orders of magnitude smaller than the Great Sail. I have included the pattern below so that everyone at SF0, MIT and elsewhere can make their own Tiny Sail. I've made at least 10 of them so far and given them away to MIT alums.

But one tip: if you try this with cookie dough, you will need a better adhesive than royal icing.

Burn Unit took it upon himself to make a more scalable version of the Great Sail model rongo rongo had established. Among the files for this proof are illustrator files with the sail components as vector graphics. This means you can take your own sail model to the far reaches of big or small. Push it to the limit! Pictures of the Micro Sail are forthcoming, but the assembly has proven to be fairly difficult. Tweezers may need to get involved.

- smaller

Great Sail

Alexander Calder's Big Sail is 40 ft tall, weighs 33 tons, and stands in front of the Green Building at MIT.

scrabble on the Media Lab building

This Scrabble board is several stories tall. We saw it when we went to MIT to look at the Great Sail. Too bad these people aren't playing SF0.

Settlers of Catan

Robber at center. Dice at the right.

Catan cost card

For $160K and 3 caffeine, you can purchase an MIT education.

At the feet of the Great Sail

We are dwarfed by this sculpture

rain at the Great Sail

Dark and stormy night, non-optimal photography conditions

windy

Burn Unit & rongo rongo stand like the sail, struggling against the wind!

under the Great Sail

The Great Sail is tall and airy, and you can walk into it and around it. Here, Burn Unit, rongo rongo, and rongo's husband stand at the centerpoint under the Great Sail.

Night photography

Burn Unit found the prettiest building on the "scienciest" campus to be ... the chapel. The interior is also beautiful.

nano scale?

The Great Sail model ... so tiny it disappeared?!?

Outside the Media Lab

Waiting to get inside the lobby

lean

The Little Sail is just the right size to get friendly with

angles

You can walk around and see it from all angles

View of the sail model

Sail model details

underneath

While you can stand under the Great Sail and look up, the Little Sail is small enough that you have to lie on the floor to get your head underneath. The picture is taken from the top of the art looking downwards.

sail model details 2

aerial photo

This is the Great Sail from the the top of the Green Building. (I didn't take this photo.) You can just make out the little people walking around it.

scale model prototype

Here my first prototype model is sitting on the little sail. This first model is not quite two orders of magnitude smaller in length than the Great Sail, but it is nearly five orders of magnitude less heavy.

Approaching the Great Sail with a model

From this point of view, they look about the same size.

Comparing the prototype model and the Great Sail

A pretty decent resemblance, I think.

model from instructions

This is the first model created from our cut-out make-your-own instruction set.

three sails and whisk

I took the pattern to a Christmas party and made three models in different colors.

Then we tried making a model with sugar cookie dough. Turns out that icing is not a good enough adhesive for the purpose, but a tray of sand was enough to prop up the pieces into a facsimile sail. This model is many orders of magnitude more tasty than the original.

icing

Also, another problem with the sugar cookie scheme was that the pieces expanded during baking unevenly, so the pieces didn't fit together quite right. However, this may be the first cookie model of the Great Sail, so it was exciting if not perfect.

multicolored sails

Five main planes on the original sculpture, five colors of cardstock, and five different multicolored models. Since the original is black, these are probably an order of magnitude more cheerfully colored.

better than bows

I used this group of Tiny Sails as a gift box decoration

even smaller

The red model is less than 4 inches tall, so is two orders of magnitude smaller than the Great Sail

dwarfed by rabbits

Yep. Pretty small.

instructions 1 of 4

Pieces A and F

instructions 2 of 4

Pieces C and D

instructions 3 of 4

Pieces B and E

instructions 4 of 4

Number pieces and assembly directions

sail-AF.ai

scalable vectors for all!

sail-EB.ai

more scalable vector parts

sail-DC.ai

more scalable vector parts

numbers.ai

more scalable vector parts

one-tenth.ai

This shows the potential for scalability. BU took rongo's drawings and duplicated them in Illustrator. Then he took all the pieces and shrunk them to 10 percent. You can do it too! In fact, you can make it as big or as small as your equipment will allow! These teensy weensy pieces did not go together very well with tape and we'll try another go at it with glue.