For the Kinetic Creatures Project, we created a peacock out of cardboard. The body consists of 8 pieces that are stacked together vertically to make the shape of the peacock. We were able to use the Rhino software and the laser cutter to create our own pieces that were derived from our own imagination. We were able to make a stand for the peacock with information we learned from tutorials in class. the mechanical element of the peacock is a combination of a drawstring bag and a paper fan. the cardboard feathers are attached by a string that when it pulled up, the feathers come together. When the string is released, the feathers spread out like a fan. 

In the beginning of our project, we decided to focus our animal on a frog. At first we wanted our frog to leap and stick to whatever surface it would land on. While creating our sketches and creating our prototypes, we figured out that it would be quite difficult to make this possible so we decided to make our project much simpler. In the diagrams above, we made our frog move its front arms back and forth by pulling two pieces of cardboard in between its two bodies. We had to figure out how we wanted the arms to move, how to keep the arms in place, and how we could make it easy for the arms to move. Our project of course isn't perfect, but we believe we completed our frog to the best of our ability and is totally functional. 

A penguin/owl animal made out of cardboard that moves its head and wings. 

Amy and I started our project from our similar interest in the motion of the penguin and owl. When we got together we decided to make an owl originally, but when we started to build it it looked also like a penguin so we combined the two. We made the body in the shape of an octagon and the head out of a pentagon in order to make them round. In the first iteration the head moved, but the wings did not, but the second iteration included movement of the two together. Then we had to laser but in order to have precise lines. Instead of glue we did a lot more notches in order for the fit to be better. We had to construct something in the inside of the powl in order to get the head and the wings to both move together. We decided on a dowel down its body which had string around it which attached to the wing tabs in the inside. When you turn the dowel the string turns making the wings move up and down. That was the mechanics inside the owl. Then we put it all together, but one of the wings broke creating it to have some issues. This is where we got the name Nemo, because Nemo has a small fin. We then had to re-laser cut the wings and re do the mechanics in order to get a clean working animal.