Originally modeled after research on the burrowing owl—an owl that nests and roosts in burrows excavated by other animals— the main component of my form emerges from a hole in the ground (via a servo-powered scissor lift skeleton) based on input from a motion sensor. This primary component expanded to model a rhizomatic organism which generates an ecosystem of movement across multiple parts of the same whole.

The majority of my process was consumed by designing and stabilizing the servo-powered scissor lift skeleton, which was actually an enjoyable task—I like to find an excuse to use mechanical parts whenever possible.

Making something feel "alive" in a complex way using mechanical motion proved to be challenging in the best way. it allowed me to rethink how movement maps "life" not only onto individual organisms, but also onto the relationships between those organisms. Moving forward, I want to experiment with making proper "robots" that exist both as individual entities, as well as a physically networked "brain".

Class: Creative Technologies 1
Instructor: Philip Van Allen
Fall 2015, Graduate Media Design Practices, Art Center College of Design

Brief: Create an interactive piece that uses one or more servo motors to create something that feels alive. Physical movement should provide the primary mode of expression. The project must include the use of the Code widget in the NETLab Toolkit with some original Javascript code.