Happy machine, inductance style

May 13, 2011 4:38 PM

“Happy” was the theme we were given by the organizers for this year's F5 Re:Play Fest, held in April in NYC, to create this edition's pieces, probably the hardest thing to convey in any artistic expression. After a good deal of introspection, and teaming up with awesome motion graphics artist Gerardo del Hierro, we decided that happy wasn't happy for Physalia unless pliers, microchips and a bit of soldering were involved, and with this idea we resolved to create the happiest machine Physalia has built to date.

TimeLapsus is another cool Physalia film

posted by nickyskye (7 comments total)

This is real? Tell me this is real and not computer generated. Jebus, I want this to be real sooooo bad.
posted by Kattullus at 4:58 PM on May 13, 2011

It's computer generated.
posted by loquacious at 4:59 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]

Noooooooooooooooo...

...in a world where Festo exists it's hard to be sure anymore...
posted by Kattullus at 5:01 PM on May 13, 2011

The balls were rendered, these were the guys who did the animation apparently.
posted by Virtblue at 5:07 PM on May 13, 2011

Maybe (hopefully) this will inspire some intrepid soul to make a real one (if such a thing is possible).
posted by selenized at 5:13 PM on May 13, 2011

Hope they have better luck than this guy...
posted by hermitosis at 5:13 PM on May 13, 2011 [1 favorite]

Put a neo magnet in each ball for crude lift, then for maglev add a bias coil, pcb, and power supply. Maybe power them remotely with a high freq coil (or each ball would need a weighty battery.) They'd have to remain far apart to keep the magnets from interacting.

Either way, the lift magnet diameter needs to be MUCH larger than the lifting distance. Use a 30FT magnet disk in the ceiling. The ceiling magnet needs no power supply, just use perm magnets, perhaps a few $1K of 2" neo magnets stuck to a steel slab.

I think NASA was working on such things for use in zero-g where there's no need to first cancel the significant weight. Move and rotate multiple magnets using a coil array. Do it in a water tank with coils inside neutral boyant spheres.
posted by billb at 8:57 PM on May 13, 2011 [2 favorites]