🤖The Machine Paradox

A course on electronics, motors, parts, fabrication and putting them all together in the form of a useless machine.

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The course started with the explanation of the purpose of the course itself: we will be dissecting, inspecting, analyzing, engineering and building our very own machines. This was exciting news. Ever since I was little I would always wonder how things worked, this led me to take things apart and later reassembling them (sometimes not successfully). So as we delved into the machines themselves, the flashback to my childhood started.

Collection of machines to be taken apart and dissected

As we moved forward with taking apart the machine we had selected (in my group's case it was a homemade plastic extruder and a home phone security system), we were assigned the task of reverse engineer the machine itself. This meant, take into consideration the amount of pieces included, what purpose they served and how they all worked together to make the machine work (or figure our why it was not working).

Forensic Report: VDS video intercom system - HackMDHackMD

Here you can see the Forensic Report on the VDS intercom system

Here you can see a description of all the parts involved in the extruder

Forensic Report: Printer - HackMDHackMD

Here you can see the Forensic Report on the DIY extruder

In doing this exercise of dissecting the machine we learned a lot about it. Some of the insights that we found were:

• The fact that we can make the extruder work with not a lot of components

• How easy and reparable it is

• How it is easy to create your own extruder of recycled plastic

This by itself served as an excellent exercise to understand a bit more of technology, machines and electronics; as well as the manufacturing factor that must be taken into consideration when designing something.

Once the machine disassembly was done, we proceeded to the juicy part of the course: actually ideating something using the parts of the machine that was essentially useless but explored a complex or abstract concept.

Whatever we designed had to take these aspects into consideration:

• Honesty

• Simplicity

• Uselessness

• Process

These factors were the parameters to create something within the briefing of the project.

The ideation process was something truly amazing, thankfully I had a very collaborative and open team and we listened to each other's ideas and built upon them. After the initial ideation process we settled on an idea we all loved and agreed upon.

A machine that showcases the randomness of life and how this randomness can change every single aspect of one's life. We wanted to focus on the "Luck of where you're born"

For this idea we developed the machine step by step. First by using sketches, and then assembling the machine while managing changes in plans that were out of our hands.

By the end of the 2 week course we had completed the project. A project we decided to name Fortuna. Here you'll be able to see the presentation of the entire project as well as a short film illustrating the machine functioning as well as the concept itself.

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Machine Paradox.pdf

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In conclusion, the course proved itself to be a perfect combination of technical skills while allowing us to explore our creativity in ways not so known to us. I would say that what I took from the course was the confidence in myself to "break things" since later we might be able to turn them into something a lot more meaningful than what it used to be.