Hypnotically, the wings of this enormous mechanical dragonfly flap up and down. The student team from Fontys Minor BeCreative created this dragonfly at the Glow Academy to raise awareness about the extinction of this beautiful insect and its importance to nature.
Project description
GLOW is a light festival held annually in Eindhoven, attracting an average of 700.000 visitors. Engineers, designers, scientists, and artists contribute to the festival.
Project Dragonfly consists of six mechanical dragonflies with wings that move up and down while also being capable of delivering a light show. The idea for the mechanical dragonflies originated from the pre-development team. Inspired by the theme of GLOW 2024, “The Stream”, they came up with the idea of creating an animal commonly found near water, a dragonfly.
We turned the prototype into a more robust design suitbable for the GLOW festival. During the subsequent production phase, six giant Dragonflies were created to realize an amazing tech-artwork that was displayed in the city centre of Eindhoven.
Project results
Electronics play a crucial role in the Dragonflies. Each Dragonfly contains a motor that moves the wings up and down and LED strips that produce a light show via a microcontroller. The LED effects are synchronized between the six Dragonflies wirelessly through ESP32 processors. All six Dragonflies are powered through a central electric box taking care of AC-to-DC power conversion, power distribution, and safety.
The wing mechanism is another vital part of the Dragonflies. The wings move up and down thanks to the electronic motor, which is connected to a drive shaft. Gears attached to the shaft enable a piston-like system that moves the wings, like a classic clock work. This created an amazing effect, that was highly appreciated by the visitors of the festival.
To create a visually striking light show, the LED strips are hidden while ensuring their light is clearly visible. The LED strips are placed in the transparent 3D-printed head and tail, as well as in the acrylic wings. Patterns engraved into the wings with a laser, guide the light from the LED strips, making the patterns glow against the clear acrylic.
During GLOW, five Dragonflies were displayed indoors in a shop window, and one was mounted outdoors hanging on a stand. It became evident during the event that the Dragonflies required daily maintenance, as some wing lights occasionally failed. Despite this challenge, the Dragonflies were a tremendous success at GLOW, winning both the jury and the audience award.
Project Dragonfly was an incredibly educational and enjoyable experience. GLOW 2024 could not have ended more successfully for our team, and the weeks following the event were used to further improve our design.
Video
Acknowledgements
The student team (Jens, Elise, Lars, Stan, Ole and Derek) would like to thank our sponsors who made the realization of this tech-artwork possible: Fontys Engineering, ASML, TinyTronics and Ata Tech B.V. Crucial for the success of the project was the support from the teachers at Fontys Engineering: H. Benten (project mentor), P. Smolders (laser cutting and 3D-printing), and the staff of the workshop and storeroom. Lastly, we thank the previous Team Dragonfly for their help during our semester and the GLOW organization for their support and providing such a wonderful location.