Project Title:

Wax Assembly represents a conversation between robotic precision, human craft, and entropic material behavior. We freed ourselves from the constraints of final form and explored how the various strata of control effect the product.

The KUKA arm attempts to use the rapid state change in wax to build a column with a logical vertical structure. Midway through the build, the actor is allowed to intercept the process with various environmental interventions such as gravity shift, air flow rate, and material temperature, in an attempt to push it into a new typological structure. The resultant form is nothing prescribed, but discovered through evaluation of the processes of formation.

The robot-driven wax dipping process is a slow build, but it’s rapid compared to similar natural devices for structural form such as stalactites in caves. We saw this as an opportunity to scale time and rapid prototype this more continental phenomenon. We wanted to capitalize on this natural order to both impose control and introduce chaotic elements to the material.

We took the telepresent interface as an opportunity to give the human maximum control over their actions (although not the results of those actions) so that they could be documented compared to the final product.

Wax Assembly was done in collaboration with Alisha Coelho, Teng Long, Taira Tsukioka, and Yue Yang.