CUTTING WEEK

Dreams of Flying

So the core idea here was to create a manually-powered flapping ornithopter — a human with mechanical wings.

I tried to use a pre-designed gear mechanism, which had a kitschy angel on top. I wanted to replace that angel with my own designed human with wings.

Needless to say, that was a lot more difficult than I thought.

Early early sketches

The printing process was a lot of fun. As our group had run out of cardboard, we used some weird package cardboard. That turned out quite finnicky, and the print before me caught fire. We quickly had to put that out!

Laser printing catching fire

Then, it was my turn. With more cautious settings, I tried printing.

Of course, now we ended underpowered and the laser wasn't able to cut through the entire cardboard.

Cardboard not fully cut through

Lots of tries and some difficulties later, I had a print of the angel which worked alright.

Assembled angel piece

Despite the jank assembly, the gears worked surprisingly well!

But with that, time was up. No human ornithopter, sadly.

Lesson: Start earlier!