Figure #9 and 10: Tall with blood

One operational figure, one with broken limbs.

Figures #9 and #10 consists of two long "legs" made from steel rods (2, 4- and 6-mm thickness). These are silver soldered together to form a leg that can support some weight (lateral force) without buckling. The steel rods are further stiffened by encasing parts of them in a 3Dprinted shell. Each leg is mounted to a 3Dprinted hinge that can rotate along an 8mm axle facing opposite directions. The two hinges are joined together using a backplate reinforced by two 6 mm steel rods to which a handhold is mounted.

The leg's angle changes by two stepper motors turning a lead screw mounted to the leg itself. There are end switches that stop the motors when the legs fully extend.

To the end of each leg, there is a small wheel attached. It rotates around an 8 mm shaft using a one-way needle pin bearing, so the wheel can only turn one direction. As the legs extend and contract if the wheels are in contact with the floor, the figure will tend to propel itself in one direction. Each leg can bend from being fully extended horizontally to approximately 90 degrees. The figures are (only #10 is still operational) battery operated and, therefore, able to move with no wires attached.

These figures require a human to steady them using the handhold in order to achieve forward motion. Without the human the contractions will tend to strand the figure on its side.

There is a speaker attached to the steel structure of one of the legs by the speaker magnet. It connects to a 20-watt amplifier that, in turn, is fed by a wireless IEM(in-ear monitor) system allowing sound to emanate from the figure itself.

Impetus

The impetus for creating figures 9 and 10 was a desire to create figures of comparable size to a human. A central idea was the creation of a human-figure symbiote with the figure as the dominant entity. A further motivation was to continue the investigation of figures with the power of locomotion as started with #7 and #8.

A description of the development of figures #9 and #10 is available in It was never going to work – the making of Procession.