HOW TO MAKE ALMOST ANYTHING - MACHINE WEEK
The board team focused on the visual language of the Ouija surface: typography, symbols, layout, and how the planchette reads letters as it moves. The goal was to create an engraved board that feels both legible and unsettling, tying together the cursor, candles, and table as a single graphic composition.
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The table team designed the physical furniture element that hides the gantry and supports the board. This includes the tabletop, structural frame, and decorative side panels. The table is the stage for the entire installation, so its proportions, details, and cutouts were tuned to both conceal the mechanism and frame the interaction.
For the cursor, we started from an existing commercial board as a physical reference. We carefully measured, scanned, and inspected the sample cursor to understand its proportions, how it sits above the board, and how it points to letters. From there, we sketched a decorative motif that would feel coherent with the typography and illustrations on the board surface. This artwork was then prepared as linework so it could be applied directly onto the cursor body, turning the pointer into a designed object rather than just a functional part.
Using Rhino, we modeled a 3D version of the cursor that incorporated both the aesthetic and functional requirements. On the top face, we created the engraved artwork. In the top-center, we left a through-hole sized for a concave lens, which acts as the visual pointer to the letters below when the cursor moves across the board. On the underside, we added pockets for magnets: these holes were placed and dimensioned to hold permanent magnets that would couple to the motion system underneath and allow the cursor to glide smoothly across the surface. Throughout the modeling process, we balanced thickness (for rigidity) with weight, so the cursor would feel solid but still move easily.
Once the CAD model was finalized, we 3D printed the cursor in white PLA. The raw print had visible layer lines, so we sanded the surface to smooth the geometry, preparing it for finishing. We then painted the cursor black, which helped the form to visually match the board look and feel. After the paint dried, we super-glued the magnets into the holes on the back and inserted the concave lens into the front opening. Finally, we placed the completed cursor on the actual board and tested it with the underlying magnets to ensure it moved reliably, stayed aligned, and accurately pointed to the letters.
Our candle module is designed to fall on command by placing it on a servo-actuated tilting platform. The servo rotates the circular plate beneath the candle; once the plate exceeds a critical angle, gravity overcomes the candle’s base stability and the candle tips over.
To determine the required servo torque and dimensions of the candle, we performed basic torque and tipping point calculations. Let the candle mass be m and center-of-mass height be h. The candle begins to tip when the projection of its center of mass crosses the edge of the circular base. We modeled the servo arm applying a torque τ over a lever arm length r (distance from servo horn to plate edge). Using the servo’s datasheet torque values, we explored feasible ranges for:
This gave us constraints for designing a candle that is stable when upright but reliably falls when the servo rotates the platform past its tipping threshold.
Our design process focused on balancing mechanical behavior (tipping) with the constraints of electronics packaging:
The final candle design integrates the falling mechanism, embedded electronics, and visual aesthetic into a single module that can be triggered during the Ouija session to create a sudden, dramatic moment.
