With over millions of different species around the world, each animal has its unique attributes. We were given the task of recreating an animal behavior into a piece of art or a mark; the twist is that we, humans, were not allowed to make this mark with our bare hands. We examined animals behavior and honed a specific concept or body part. Our chosen animal, the Peregrine Falcon, is one of the world's most unique birds. It lives in all parts of the world, but particularly high altitudes and spends much of its time in the sky. We focused on its aggressive behavior and how it flies exceedingly fast without the result of death. The Peregrine Falcon can dive up to 240 mph when going in for its prey; specifically, 3/4 or more of their diet is made up of birds. Its specific wing motion and structure interested us and are key components to its unique behavior. We used wood, LED lighting/Arduino, two desk fans, a fog machine, straws, and a complex 3D printed wing. The motorized falcon wing will flap through condensed fog and wind to show its unique flight pattern and structure. Our wing will include a series of linkages to give and accurate representation of such a specific motion. Our complex visual mark is produced by the combination of the colorful LED strip and the fog stream lines.

A device that replicates the motion of a peregrine falcon’s wing flapping and gliding and how it affects the air around it. 

We wanted to show how intricate the motion of the peregrine falcon and when looking at slow motion videos of it I realised that the way it flaps moving so fast could be really interesting aerodynamically. Replicating the airfoil profile of the wings has been challenging because there isn't a profile online and we can't do 3d non-linear flow simulation so we basically had to guess what it looks like based on general knowledge of birds we found and pictures of the wing. Fortunately the mechanism for the flapping has been more obvious to design because we had a slow motion video of the falcon flapping.