What Does It Take?

Vedant Manwadkar

Projects

Sidequests

About

Vedant Manwadkar

Projects

Sidequests

About

Vedant Manwadkar

What Does it Take? - A Kinetic Sculpture

A moving Rube Goldberg Machine that exhibits the emotional journey of learning to play the guitar

Storytelling

Physical Computation

Arduino & Electronics

Abstraction

Role:

Concept Design, Build (8 weeks)

Discipline:

New Media Design

Project Goal:

To conceptualize and build a Rube Goldberg machine of 10-15 steps, that expresses a linear narrative without using language or obvious imagery.

Form of the finished sculpture

Video of the sculpture in motion

About Rube Goldberg Machines

A Rube Goldberg machine is an intentionally overly complicated contraption designed to perform a very simple task through a long, indirect, and elaborate chain reaction.

Named after the American cartoonist and engineer Rube Goldberg, these machines typically use basic physics principles like gravity, momentum, and buoyancy in creative sequences.

Each action triggers the next in a domino effect.

A Rube Goldberg machine is an intentionally overly complicated contraption designed to perform a very simple task through a long, indirect, and elaborate chain reaction. Named after the American cartoonist and engineer Rube Goldberg, these machines typically use basic physics principles like gravity, momentum, and buoyancy in creative sequences. Each action triggers the next in a domino effect.

Rube Goldberg's Professor Butts and the Self-Operating Napkin (1931).

Learning to Learn: A Three Act Story

The sculpture expresses the journey of learning to play the guitar in a 3 Act structure of:

Overzealous chase of an unrealistic aspiration
Failure and quitting the process
Succeeding through selfless and slow practice

Act 1: ASPIRATION

I wanna be everything at once

The learner is inspired by guitar maestros of different musical schools. Metal, Flamenco, Pop, she wants to be like them all.

Chasing the Idea

Pursuing this imagined version of the self that keeps moving further away, pushes the learner into the Process.

First attempts, failure

Initial overzealous attempts at learning end up being disastrous. Nothing sounds as it should.

The sculpture denotes the feeling through the sound of falling metallic sculptures, and muted xylophone tones as the marble falls.

Act 2: TRANSFORMATION

Image is shattered

Failure breaks the learner's self-image, manages the unrealistic aspiration.

The vanity mirror comes crashing down, with a marble dropping into the pit below, with a loud metallic sound of plates clashing together.

The Image is the trap

The learner must realize that the idea of the image is the one holding them back.

The spinning card reminds that the idea of the image is an illusion.

Becoming Formless

Once this awareness is obtained, they are free to dissolve the image and become formless.

The marble disappears into a cloud of smoke.

Act 3: PLAY!

Slow practice, without expectation

The learner begins slow, yet steady practice without a sense of comparison.

Plectrums attached to a motorized shaft repetitively pluck 3 notes on a string.

Greatness with grace

The learner becomes one of the greats they were aspiring to be like, as their own, true self.

Curtains open to show the learner's image among the many they earlier admired.

Making of the Kinetic Sculpture

The initial sketches determined the mechanisms and effects to build. The sculpture is an evolved version of these ideas.

Sketch for Aspiration

Sketch for Trandformation

Sketch for Play!

Prototyping the mechanisms was a crucial step in determining what physical phenomenon are appropriate for the concept, and how difficult they are to put together and add to the chain.