Genius Camp | Simone Sparrow

Powl Presentation

Simone Sparrow and Amy Chan

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.