Videos of the DEMES

November 6

I arrived at the lab today and one of the 5 DEMES (DEMES Kat 2) had broken. It left some greasy yellow stains on the white paper and the membrane had shrivelled up inside the frame. The membrane has not pulled away from the frame so it must have had a hole in it somewhere else. DEMES Kat 2 was the one I made with 2 paths going vertically through it. Maybe this was not the best design!

Today's plan was to actuate the remaining DEMESs and the other Kats 2-5. All intact- so far.

When I started trying to actuate the planer DEAs, all my copper kept falling off. I guess sitting around for nearly two weeks they lost their adhesive. So I had to spend a while fixing all of them.

Last week when I hooked up 'Kat 4' to the power box, only the koru that was directly connected to the box was actuating to its full extent. I was disappointed with this result. When we had made the motor we had 3 different cables connecting straight to the box. This is what I liked best and what we did today. 4 phases max on the control box is what we used which was enough. 'Kat 4' looked awesome and we played with the switching, timing, frequency and voltage.

'Kat 5' is different as this one doesn't seem as obvious because I only painted parts of it. 2 heads of the koru expand while the other 2 stems expand. Nifty effect but very subtle. I might look further into that.

The other DEMES works were successful too. Watching them put lots of ideas in my head. So many possibilities for these things!

Solidworks after lunch. I re-draw alot of my pencil cketches onto Illustrator, a computer drawing programme. Now in order to laser cut my drawings I have to convert them and trace them onto Solidworks. This is great software but hard to get used to. I can't wait to start cutting my own designs into plastic very soon.

DEMES

Ben O’Brien, a PhD student in the Biomimetics lab, taught Kit and I how to make a DEMES today. DEMES stands for Dielectric Elastomer Minimum Energy Structure. So far, I have made planer DE’s but a DEMES is more 3d.

With Ben we cut some already existing templates on the lasercutter. I imagine that making a drawing on ‘Solidworks’ for a DEMES frame is very complicated. The slightest design change will affect the performance. It took Ben ages to get the right shape for the motion he wanted. The DEMES is miniature which is perfect for what Ben needs to make. For artwork, the design is very small. Scale is important to me as I want the artwork to be accessible to many people. Rather than a group of people peering at a small sculpture in an exhibition space, I would prefer the artwork to be easily visible from a distance if possible. It will be a challenge to increase the scale of the DEMES to an appropriate size. For now, I will stick to what we know works!

Ben showed us all the steps to making the DEMES. Then we got it working. It is very cool. The flexible frame allows the membrane to straighten up and relax. It looks like it is flapping back and forth.

Then it was my turn. What a drama! With some frames already made and ready, it was my job to stretch the VHB. I thought stretching it on one plane was difficult. With a DEMES, in order to curl the membrane over the frame, you have to stretch in with different tensions in different directions. Super tricky. This requires a new stretcher. I found it close to impossible. The VHB kept tearing. It wants to pull away from the paddles so quickly. You have to keep your eyes and fingers on it or it breaks. I broke 3 before I managed to stick one to the strat successfully. One small victory. There is only one thing to do: practise practise practise.

Hei konei ra.

-KatyPie

Above: Cutting VHB meterial to construct our first DEMES




Above: Our first DEMES in action ( with a little help from Ben)




Above: Increasing the applied voltage increases the amount of bending motion on the DEMES




Above: Increasing the frequency increases the speed of the DEMES