www primarygames coom

This a prototype I cobbled together out of spare parts lying around my shop. Its basically a scaled up verson of the 6' high wind poles I built for my show. To make this one work the concrete weighs about 40 pounds, so I had to switch from a string pivot, to cast iron flange bearings. I am using four of them so I can get full movement in two axes, allowing the pole to sway in any direction as the wind hits it. For the next version I think the wood mast needs to be less noodly, and it needs to be taller, you can see that I got the concrete snugged up close to the pivot and it's still a bit bottom heavy.

This is a test prototype of part of my upcoming gallery installation which will be happening in June at Truck Gallery in Calgary, Alberta.. The goal is to replicate the feeling of a field of grass blowing in the wind, only without the actual wind. This version is a little too active, I want to have more lulls, and a bit more calmness, so I am going to be redesigning the cam. The final version will consist of about 50 poles in total (perhaps less if the load is too high for my motor), all set up in a cluster and attached to a bigger version of the control cam wheel seen here. I am thinking of making the final wheel about 5 or 6 feet in diameter, and running it off an electric motor. The big question now is the power-train, I have some nice blower motors, but they spin about a thousand times a minute faster than I want, so I am going to need serious speed reduction which will generate a lot of torque. My goal is to not lose an arm or other appendages to this thing. Also, sorry about the background, the sculpture doesn't fit too well in my basement, each pole is about 6' high, and the total length of the base with the mechanism is about 8'