The Great Prince

Inspiration

As course 20 (Biological Engineering) majors, we have very little experience with making things. We wanted to participate in MakeMIT to gain exposure to different types of tools and try our hand at creating something before finishing our last semester at MIT. Our piece specifically was inspired by Bambi, a tale of family and forgiveness. We wanted whatever we created to convey a sense of simplistic joy. We wanted this experience to be a fond memory to look back upon once we graduate in June, after which we will be embarking on the next steps in our lives.

What it does

We built a stag head out of cardboard, mounted on particle board. A conveyor belt behind the animal's ears and antlers carries a small, blue butterfly, a representation of friendship. The butterfly glides between the deer's ears, and can be controlled by the observer of the piece through two buttons.

How we built it

We made a 3-inch prototype out of paper and scaled it up. The head itself is made up of 16 pieces of cardboard, each with slits in them. The pieces connect by a lattice structure, in which the slits are slid into each other. Then the head was glued onto a wooden shield. The conveyor belt structure is made with K'nex pieces, string, and a servo motor, and controlled using two buttons with an arduino.

Challenges we ran into

Coming into MakeMIT, we had very little experience with the electronic parts that were available for use. But we did want to learn something during the time, and to incorporate some electronics into our work. Specifically for the cardboard portion of our project, one issue we found was the stability of the head on the mount because it was a very long head that was front-heavy. To accommodate, we glued the pieces together in addition to having them interlock, as well as drilled holes in the wooden board to allow a wire threaded through to aid in supporting the front of the head; the wire was circled under the neck of the deer.

We struggled to figure out how to get the motor to work, and then had some difficulty in getting our conveyer belt to run in a 'C' shape with angles greater than 180 degrees (rather than simply a trapezoid). After getting some help from a mentor, we made a bracket that contained a rod connected to the string of the conveyer belt, allowing our desired shape.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

To compensate for our limited technical abilities, we decided to create a more artistic, visual piece that incorporates electronics in a simple yet charming way. We are proud to present our work for the day: The Great Prince of the Forest. Our piece reflects a journey: not only Bambi's to becoming his father's successor, but also our own in discovering new excitement in creating and exploring other fields.