Slashdot Mirror
Solar Machine Spins Sunlight-Shaped Furniture
Mike writes "Austrian designers mischer'traxler have created a solar powered machine that makes an incredible array of furnishings that vary based on how much sunlight it receives over the course of a day. Titled 'The Idea of a Tree,' the machine spins spools of thread into stools, benches, containers, and lamp shades that wax and wane as the available sunlight shifts. Furniture created during cloudy winter days will be wrapped more slowly, causing it to be darker in color, thicker, and smaller than pieces created during the sun-soaked summer months."
Theres goes its practicality in Vancouver....
So what.
and useless use of the solar energy.
But maybe I'm too dumb to appreciate it.
Maybe Computers will never be as intelligent as Humans.
For sure they won't ever become so stupid. [VR-1988]
interesting use of solar energy, but these are some ugly looking furniture
looks like an interesting DIY project, anyone know the specifics of the thread and resin used to do something like this?
So they hooked a machine to a solar power source whose varied power output results in slightly different products... I guess the little kids in africa and china making overpriced furnishings with imperfections, err, personality... can now be replaced.
The machine cranks out 1 piece per day, a maximum of 365 pieces per year. At that rate, how many years does it take to recoup the cost of the machine, with at least $500 worth of solar panels?
I've abandoned my search for truth; now I'm just looking for some useful delusions.
you could plug it into an outlet and make more consistent furniture and make it all the time.
Its not my fault, someone put a wall in my way.
It's the iPhone killer we've all been waiting for!
...for which we've been waiting. Sorry, everyone. Sorry! I got a little carried away there.
Tic-Tac-Toe, Global Thermonuclear War, and relationships all have the same winning move.
Seems like I could rig a MakerBot to run on solar or other renewable energy. So I must ask the question, why not buy 1 MakerBot kit and use it to make a FunitureMakerBot?
You could power it with solar, mechanical, hydro, etc etc etc... Just a thought.
"Be prepared, son. That's my motto. Be prepared." --Joe Hallenbeck
I've seen pieces at big lots running higher than $500.
the machine spins spools ... into stools
My dog does this... he tears apart yarn, eats it, and eventually it comes out the other end.
From TFA:
In developing "The Idea of a Tree", Mischer'traxler were drawn towards both automated machines and the concept that "a tree is a product of its specific time and place.
It reacts and develops according to its surrounding and constantly records various environmental impacts in its growth process.
Each single tree tells its own story of development."
In their "Idea of a Tree" project they create a product that is a immediately linked to the environment in which it is produced, and fittingly each product bears a stamp notating the date and place where it was created.
The point of the project was to try to emulate a tree and the way it produces fruit.
Which is inherently not a very productive process. That is why trees employ redundancy. A lot of it.
Basically, they have developed a very complicated replacement for a "Made in" stamp.
Mit der Dummheit kämpfen Götter selbst vergebens
...composed of plutonium and dioxin.
Saying 'sunlight-shaped' led me to think that the variation in sunlight caused the machine to vary the 3-dimensional form of the furniture. But the machine does nothing of the kind.
Deal with reality - the world as it is - rather than ideality - the world as you would like it to be.
I'm imagining a whole life-cycle loop, with a farm of these things churning out chairs, and Ballmer at the other end of the life-cycle wrecking them. They just need a way to recycle the broken pieces back into chairs again.
I guess I'm just not cool enough to get the point of this exercise.
I'm a Programmer. That's one level above Software Engineer and one level below Engineer.
Well I like the concept! It's not meant to be pretty, an alternative form of cheap labor, or cure cancer. "[The idea of the] project was to bring the recording qualities of a tree and its dependence on natural cycles into products. Therefore machines were developed which are recording and producing at the same time." It helps reading before you spool drivel ;D
Noone will ever see my comment, but here goes.
Actually, this is genius.
This puts furniture in a whole new realm.
If it wasn't so craptastic looking it could catch on like wine.
People pay huge amounts of money for specific vintage wines because
the rain, sun and soil nutrients were a specific amount to create a
certain taste.
Well it's possible people would by a chair, because it fits their ass perfectly
due to the random timing of sun and clouds.
There'll be chair snobs! Drink your Château La Conseillante 1865 on your 2012 chair.
Dev 1: How the hell do we make these glass tubes uniform in color, density and size with varying solar power input to our device?
Dev 2: I dunno, that's a tough problem, we should give it a week and see if we can figure it out.
one week later
Dev 1: You got anything?
Dev 2: Not a thing.
Dev 1: Me neither. Fuck it. Let's call it art and be done with it.