Wiggly Tree

Inspiration

We were inspired to capture the motion of leaves swaying in the wind. The motion was inspired by the way waves travel through a medium.

What it does

Aside from looking awesome, the tree moves like a ripple as a wave of motion starts at the bottom, powered by a servo motor. Rubber bands connected between each layer of leaves transfer the motion up the tree.

How we built it

We started by creating each layer of the leaves by hot gluing fabric onto the end of painted nails, then gluing the nails into a 3D printed disk. We then mounted each disk on a bearing, and mounted them on a threaded rod. The base was also 3d printed, then decorated with moss and clay. The motion is controlled by an ESP32 microcontroller.

Challenges we ran into

It was difficult to get the wave to travel smoothly up the tree since the leaves kept bumping into eachother. We solved this with careful pruning.

Accomplishments that we're proud of

We're really proud of taking the physicall mechanism that allows the motion and adding so much detail to the base mechanism in such a short time. Also, we're proud that it looks very close to our initial vision, and that we were able to combine our skills together.

Built With

• esp32