A Thousand Li of Mountains and Rivers

• Idea

My idea is inspired by a famous ancient Chinese landscape painting called A Thousand Li of Mountains and Rivers. My story is about traveling into this painting, so what once a static image transforms into dynamic and lively mountains and rivers. You can imagine yourself sitting on a boat, floating along the river. As the water flows, the mountains in your view seem to come alive, rising and falling...

The mountains look just like they do in a painting, with a gradient of blue, green, and gold. In front of the mountains, there's a river simulated with fabric. Cotton is used in the middle to imitate clouds and mist, creating the feeling of a sea of clouds drifting through the mountains. You can also spot some fish swimming in the painting. The mechanism works like this: there are three gears, and each gear is connected to a roller. The rollers have several eccentric wheels attached to them. The mountains are supported by sticks, and at the bottom of each stick is a piece of curved cardboard. When the gears turn, the eccentric cams rotate along with them, pushing the cardboard upward.

• Video of the story: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1YuMCqNRlGDoA1gZ42yBt4LjPT5pMq6k_/view?usp=sharing

• Process

• Reflection

Building a mechanism is a process that’s both challenging and rewarding. It is challenging because I often encounter all sorts of unexpected problems during the design and assembly stages, such as the incorrect dimension or the mechanism might not work smoothly. This has taught me the importance of being patient and continuously experimenting and adjusting to achieve the desired result. The sense of accomplishment comes when the mechanism finally works, it feels like all the effort has truly paid off. I think I had fun in continuing trying, failing, and finally sucessing. 

The biggest challenge I faced was figuring out how to transfer the movement of the eccentric cams into the motion of the mountains. Even though the current solution now seems obvious, I actually struggled with it for quite a long time. At first, I simply glued the sticks directly, but it was difficult to keep them aligned with the wheels. Later, I thought of increasing the contact area, so I attached small square pieces of cardboard to the bottom of the sticks. However, for some reason, the movement wasn’t smooth at all and the sticks often got stuck. In the end, I designed this curved cardboard piece. This reduced friction and also helped keep the mountains in place without them shifting around.

What didn't work is that I was unable to form the movement of the fish to make them look like swimming in the 'river'. If I had more time, I would also attach these fish to the rollers. When the rollers turn, the fish would rotate as well, so that the toy may seem more dynamic. Also, I would consider using alternative methods to support these mountains, so that they won’t tilt and the mechanism to work more smoothly.