Walk the Talk (Mock-up of levitating seat)

Hello people!
welcome to another entry about a project on levitating/floating seat. For those who missed out the previous entries, you can browse the archive within the blog. Previous entries will explain a little more on today entry.

After all research had been worked out,and all required data being gathered, It's time to walk the talk! Now is the time to put theories to practices by implying on the mock-ups.

Magnet levitation

The magnets are constructed within the acrylic box to suspend the panel above

Isometric view

Optical Illusion 

Front view: the levitating effect can be gained in certain angle

Structural design will help the product to create an optical illusion to the user

Water Flotation

Archimedes' rules!!: the seat (panel above) will float by the effect of buoyancy

close up view

 That is all for the test mock-ups for the seat project. The final decision on which concept should be applied in the seat will be exposed in the next entry. until then, calllo mera bhaii~!

Levitating or Floating seat?! (part II)

Hello dear reader!

We have discussed on the introduction of the project in the previous entry. In this entry we are going to continue with the research on how we can levitate or float an object.

Art of Levitation or Flotation
To defy the gravity is not a simple task, as it is the essential thing in the earth rules. the things that keep us intact with the earth surface is the gravity, and our body weight is also causes from the pull of gravity. So, how do we repel the gravitational force so we can float in the air? To do that, we can rely on few rules and tricks.

Magnet
a magnet is a device/object (usually ferrite) which have the capability to attract iron based object, it also produce magnetic field. usually, magnet have 2 main poles, which is the south pole and the north pole. By manipulating the magnet poles, we can easily create a levitation force to an object. To have a greater levitation force, I suggest you to use neodymium magnet, which have a mass repulsive and attractive force.

A pencil being levitated using magnetic repulsion force

Levitating lamps: current product that used the magnetism law.

Display platform: the platform can levitate any designated toys/display products

Visual Illusion (structural construction)
There are also another way to obtain the levitating effect by only tricking the visual of the eyes. Magician call this, visual illusion. Do you really think that magician can levitate someone into mid-air? well I guess you have been foolishly tricked into that.

A perfect liar: there is no such thing as magical levitation!come on, get real!

a perfect material to create a levitation illusion is a clear solid acrylic. The acrylic can be served as the suspension or a stand to the product you want to levitate.Another way to achieve visual illusion is to manipulate the structural design of the object itself. Below are some of the example of the visual illusion:

A bed which give a levitating effect by manipulating the acrylic panel.

Dylan floating contemporary bed

Archimedes' principle
Archimedes have come out with brilliant theory of density, and with the theory, the creation of largest ship on earth is possible (like Titanic!). Archimedes stated that; in a container full of water, if an object is partially or fully immersed in the water, the displaced water have a same mass value of the object itself. In a simple word, If the weight of the water displaced is less than the weight of the object, the object will sink Otherwise the object will float, with the weight of the water displaced equal to the weight of the object.

To understand fully about Archimedes' principle, I suggest you to do some homework on it as this is not a science blog ( lol ). So, what Archimedes' principle have to do with the topic?? well, by manipulating the principle, we can create a floating object in the house. the crystal clear water would give a levitation effect if the object floating.

a crystal clear water would give an optical illusion of levitating object

floating lanterns

Air Pressure (Bernoulli principle)
another last trick that I forgot to mention is air pressure. By implying a certain methods and tricks, the pressure of the air can be use as the medium to levitate an object. The simple example is hovercraft. The air pressure created by the turbines inside the hovercraft create a lift force which is then levitate the hovercraft in mid-air. The principle can be manipulated the same way if we intended to levitate an object.

Old school toy: the toy using the Bernoulli principle to hover the ball

OK, that is all I can come out with for this entry. Actually the research that had been done is more than just what have been explained here.So, do some homework and you will learn more! Basically, this entry is the guidance for me through selecting a proper and viable principle so that my vision to create a levitating/floating seat can be realize. until next time~~ challooooo~

Up next>>> It's time to walk the talk! (mock-up of floating seat)

Levitating or Floating seat?! (part I)

Prelude
 Hello and greetings mate!

Have you ever wonder what is it like to sit peacefully in the air?, or floating calmly on a water without having to wet yourself? It might sound little mind-boggling and impossible (at least for now). In many science fiction movies, we could see that levitating object is a trend in near future.

Human on levitated seat - 'Wall-E animation by PIXAR'

In my personal opinion, the levitation and floating seat is possible. Of course, the significance of levitating chair is still debatable, however to have a levitating or floating seat in our house or in office would be cool!.

The Task
correlated to the issue above; the designers have been given a task which required us to develop a new product by only refer a topic of SEAT. It's a quite broad issue I must say. So, as my philosophy is "ARTECHRISTIC", I've decided to take the challenge on researching a levitating/floating seat based on year 2050 themes. whether the project is going on well or failed, I suggest you keep on reading the thread ;)

Intro 
Before we go deeper on levitating/floating seat, let me explain to you all about all of the data gathered to support the study on the seat. The first thing of all is the UNDERSTANDING about the topic.

the wise man once told us, " We must totally understand about something before we know about that thing."

What is seat? why do we need seat? Where do we seat? When we seat? ; that are some of the question we need to ask our self if we intend to understand the topic. The question might sound simple and ridiculous for this type of topic but, it's the only way we could gain 99.9% understanding about the topic. Most of the flaw when doing a research is that, we assume we knew about that particular topic.

OK, enough lecture session, now I will  explain to you my understanding about seat. Seat is a place where we can relax our leg muscle causes by the strain from walking or standing. from the web definition, seat can be also claimed as a space reserved for sitting, like in theaters, and airplane.

Nowadays, there are lots of seat that have been design whether to served certain function or a state-of-the art design purposely. Example can be watch below (click to enlarge):

Marcel Breuer - Wassily Chair

Single seat

Auditorium seat design

Mark Newson: Lockheed Lounge

The understanding about the seat and usability of a seat is differ from one to another. Seat is a very broad term that can be incorporate with any entities that allow us to sit and rest our legs. There, now you know the very basic and fundamental definition of seat. next, how we can incorporate seat topic into something more challenging such as levitating seat? can seat really can be levitate? how to do it? the next entry will explains a little bit on the mechanism research.

to be continue in Part II entry... (stay tuned!)

About the Blog

FOREWORDS
Hello and greeting earthlings!

Finally the long awaited blog have come to life! ( as if .. :P ). The blog purpose is to spread the knowledge to the public about the variety world of design, the correlation of science and art, technology and also the design ideas from the author itself. So make sure you are the first to check it out!!

FLEBBLE: one of the design produced by author in 2010

ARTECHRISTIC
The title of the blog represent for Art+Technology+Futuristic. all of these terms are influenced the author's design idea, or so to say, this is the author's philosophy of design.