Aesthetics and Housing

Art by Sharon Bellia taken from Pinterest

The Housing Design

The housing is made of 6mm MDF. We laser cut it from drawings made from our CAD model. The housing sits 16cm tall, 26cm wide, and 30cm long. The finger joints and slots allow for easy assembly. Two L-brackets in each corner keep the walls in place. They were added after the finger joints were not enough to keep the walls in place. The top of the box had 8 holes to which the arms are mounted and one for the head's supporting shaft to move around in. There is a 1cm lip at the top of the box that was added for aesthetic design purposes to hide the bottoms of the arms. The bottom is held in place by friction and glue sealant. The back wall comes with a hinged panel so that we can easily access electrical, our Adruino, and mechanical components.

The Aesthetics

We set an initial goal to have our final project meet a professional quality standard and meet the aesthetics needed for the theme of our project. Since our theme is ocean related and highlights a dancing octopus we needed to make sure both of those came to life. We can categorize this section of the project into a few mini sections: Head, Ocean, Seaweed, and little animals.

Before Addition of Paper

The Head

We made our octopus head out of paper mache. It has a wire frame and balloon base. We did this because we needed it to be light weight and a unique shape. We painted the head orange and with simple facial features to match the desired color scheme

Painted Head

Side of Box

The Ocean

We want our octopus to be living in his natural habitat when sitting on your desk. We painted the sides of the box with shades of blue for the water near the surface. On the top of the box we hand painted tissue paper, wrapping it around the arms and head to make waves.

"Water" Tissue Paper

Around the Coral

The Seaweed

When we thought of the ocean, we thought of seaweed. To line the bottom of the ocean box, we have used green wire to design seaweed like figures. Bending the wire in different ways led to an assortment of designs. They cling onto the box and add an edge to our project.

On the Corner

Starfish

The Little Animals

We want our octopus to be accompanied by friends. When paper macheing the head we made wire frames for a few creatures. We covered them in paper, painted them, and attached them to the sides. They sit on the left and right side of the box. Colorful and cute. They add texture to the sides and detail to the project.

Seahorse

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