ORRERIES THAT I HAVE BUILT

The presence of the universe and the math that saturates it (almost) completely facinates me a great deal.   It has led me to wear my sundial watch often.   Time is based on the Rotation of the Sun!   Not off of the vibrations of a clever little pulsating crystal!   Really though, there are majior adjustments to sundials that need to be made in order for them to read correct.

An orrery is like a physical gear-driven version of a planetarium.   Instead of watching projections of the planets dance around on the ceiling, an Orrery is a clock or gear driven display.   Since I don't have a clock workshop, or ha hemmm money, I quenched my mechanism building desire with what I could find around me.

This is a candle light-sheding orrery.  It consists of wall clock parts that have been modified to carry a planet earth, a little moon, and a copper sun.  The earth is mounted on the second hand spindle, the moon is mounted on the minuite hand , and the sun is mounted on the hour hand.   They all spin around their full 360 degrees.  The earth and moon are located in the shadow of the underside of the candle, and the sun is located out where the candle light hits it.   On the sun is a small mirror that reflects the candle's light inward, towards the center, where the earth is located.  The base is a renovated lamp base that I found in the garbage along with the clock.  I had girl troubles that day and I needed a task.   Built in Dec 99'

This is a candle powered orrery.   The convective air from the burning candles rotates a series of needle mounted copper wheels that have planets mounted on them.   Built in Dec.99.

This is a Orrery that I built based on my interest in compliant mechanisms.    A compliant mechanism relies on the physical flexture of an object to achieve a mechanical movement.   A spring is a compliant mechanism.  It changes shape to achieve a task.   In this case I used nylon webbing over whose twisted length achieves multiple strata of pleasing axial rotations.  This hanging mobile model of the universe turned out pretty good.   It was built for a party entitled, "Best idea Ever, what could possibly go wrong".   My contribution was a sculpture of the universe with the earth on the back of a turtle, with the sun and god orbiting the earth.  (the sun happened not to be turned on in the picture) It moved really well with 4 independently spining parts. It has 4 high quality lenses on it that when the sun and the lenses align.   It would shoot a beam of light across the room.   March 09, 04  (the picture is by Julia Solis)

This is a epicyclic magnetic orrery.  Each platform rotates at half the speed of the adjacent, above platform, yeilding a lovely movment that coresponds (vissualy but not mathematically) to planetary movements.   The gear system is called an epicylic gear system.  It achieves 4 different rotation speeds by each gear system redundantly attached to the adjacent gear system.  The upper surface was covered with iron fillings that would dance around with the black ceramic magnetics in motion under the surface of the plexiglass.   I built this June, 2005 for a art show at my house.   The best part about it is that it can be miniturized!   I am still designing my perfect sundial watch.  It will point towards the sun or moon any time of the day, but inputing the day of the year, longatude, and latitutde.

All images, designs, and inventions displayed on this page are the sole property of Brian Matthews as protected by the Copyright laws of the United States.

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