Our team collaborated with the ARS 256 students on several different projects. The art student came to us with a background story centering on a specific disease/medical problem. We worked with our partners consistently to provide them with their desired designs at a feasible level and eventually have them 3D printed, to be added to the art student’s project. Our team had 3 different designs we split among ourselves but still worked together on each one.
EAR GOES NOTHING
ARS 256 Collaborator: Nicholas Simms
Nicholas’s back story for this project:
“This idea is inspired by not one specific person, but the countless musicians who have sustained hearing loss and tinnitus due to prolonged exposure to dangerous sound levels. As musicians, our ears are among the most valuable and cherished assets we have, but far too many musicians have taken their hearing for granted and subjected themselves to unsafe levels, causing irreparable harm. Just a few notable artists who suffer from tinnitus include Neil Young, Pete Townshend of the Who, Jeff Beck, Phil Collins, Beach Boys founder Brian Wilson, Barbara Streisand, and Sting. Even my mom’s cousin, who was a notable touring musician, serving at times as a lead guitarist for The Turtles, David Johannsen, and as a front man for the iconic European prog-rock group, Nektar, has suffered from such severe tinnitus as to have to retire from music altogether, as well as fully give up listening to music at all due to the severity of his flare ups. By the time I was out of high school almost every kid I grew up playing music with had already developed tinnitus because they felt young and invincible– as such I’ve always worn PPE to protect my hearing. Due to the widespread nature of tinnitus, this sculpture idea is inspired by the suffering everyman of the music industry and is meant to serve as a warning from them to those who have not yet damaged their hearing: Do not let this happen to you.”
Nicholas has personally seen the effects tinnitus has on people he cares about and wanted to create a statement piece that would serve as a warning of this disease’s devastating symptoms. We decided the design would consist of a plaque with several casted ears (provided by Nick) and then at the center would be an abnormally large ear (3D printed by the BME student, Rachel). This ear would have a hole through the middle that would lead to a monostable oscillator circuit behind the plaque, tuned to produce a constant low-volume high pitch whine, representing the constant low whine of tinnitus.
EYEMASK
ARS 256 Collaborator: Taha Ahmad
Taha’s backstory for the project
Anita Ai was a dedicated member of the cult of Yugo Nasi. She spent years climbing up the ladder of the organization, and was on the cusp of becoming cult leader. As the final step in her promotion she had to gouge out her own eye, which she does without hesitation. After doing so, a new one grew from the socket, but did not belong to her. Yugo Nasi replaced her eye with his and in doing so gave himself vision and stole hers.
In addition to housing the glass eye, Taha wanted the eye to be able to cast various colors of light, including UV light. To make this into reality, we had to create a mask that was capable of holding a glass eye about 3.15 inches in diameter; the Face of Yugo Nasi. Since the eye was made of glass, additional supports both inside the mask and externally on its face needed to be made in order to accomodate it. The mask sat on top of the user’s face, and the eye would be supported by both the inbuilt supports in the mask, and the user’s empty eye socket that sat behind it. Additionally, to bring the lights to the eye, we created an Arduino circuit that was capable of casting light with a remote control; the exact design can be seen in the Arduino Designs tab.
The Eyemask Final 3D design
BASEBALL PLAYER’S EYE REPLACEMENT + HALF-MASK
ARS 256 Collaborator: Faina St. Paul
Faina’s backstory for this project:
A baseball player was playing and a fastball hit them in the face. The player now requires surgery to remove his eye, so we are modeling a replacement for him.
Faina wants to offer more options to athletes who may have lost their eyes due to a stray ball hitting them. The half mask is designed to fit to someone’s face while also holding the eye replacement with a cast (provided by ARS 256 student Faina St. Paul) so the user does not have to insert their eye into the socket every time they want to use it. The half-mask (designed by Courtney Bentham), as well as being the holder for the eye, doubles as protection for the face to ensure no dust or dirt gets into the socket, as the athlete may want to go back to playing. The mask is held on the face with an earpiece that ensures it will stay in place.
Initial Sketch for the eye replacement
Final design for the half-mask and eye replacement