Tuesday, January 12, 2010

The nothing machine

Some time back,   

Rodney asked if we would help him on a project he wanted to do.

The idea -   To build a crazy mechanical machine with gears, chains, links and motors. At the core would be a type writer, the gears, cams, links and chains moving everywhere but at the center the type writer typing over and over again the word "NOTHING" in all caps.The machine would be call the nothing machine.

We worked for about 3 weeks on the project, Rodney running the show, Wiggins making parts and myself doing what I do or something like that.

The goal at the end of the project was for the coffin sized machine to travel with Toyota's Art Tour around the USA, while generating donations for the various non-profits by the sales of the pieces of NOTHING. ( small framed pieces of the machine's output paper with the word "NOTHING" on it) Some greater sales came from the sales of wooden boxes filled with the NOTHING paper but also pieces of metal or parts from the fabrication of the machine, these boxes brought in hundreds of dollars alone. I am in the video loading a box with ball bearings from the little steel man, which later sold for 50 dollars, ha ha, not bad.

The video is a bit choppy, I made it a long time ago and used a ton of about 15 second clips I had on my digital camera. I am really surprised that I even had enough to make this.
First check out the machine then watch the movie.


All the little preloaded picture frames with a piece of NOTHING


You can see the motor at the bottom and the type writer




Enjoy.  It costed Rodney a lot of money !

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