❀ Blooming Under Heat
°❀.࿔
Tools & Skills
Soldering iron, protoboard, 12-pin header, brass rod,
soldering, metal fabrication, physical prototyping, creative hardware construction
Can you create something pretty and delicate out of coarse, harsh metals?
Yes! With a bit of heat and a different perspective :)
Using a soldering iron, I created a flower sculpture on a protoboard. I explored how to solder pins, shape solder beads, and bend brass rods to bloom a flower to life.
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PROCESS
Starting this project was intimidating because I had no prior experience with soldering, protoboards, or working with metals. Therefore when I began soldering my first 12 pins to the board every single one of them was a mess. The solder beads were either bleeding through the board, touching neighboring pins, or too small to hold onto the board.
In determination for more practice (and some itching perfectionism) I asked for a new board and started over.
My second attempt went smoothly and I picked up a few tricks along the way — hold the heating iron still and feed the iron into it, less is more (it is so much easier to add more solder then remove too much, it WILL end up flooding through the board), and take breaks between pins to plan out the positioning for the next bead.
With the beads down, I moved on to designing the sculpture itself. While soldering the pins, I noticed how naturally the solder built outward — almost stacking on top of itself in layers. Although it was an annoying feature when I was trying to solder small beads for the pins, I realized I could use this to my advantage in sculpting my art piece by pushing the solder outward to create leaves branching off a stem.
So, I picked up the pliers and got to work on the brass rods, twisting and curving it into the shape of rose petals. Then I took the solder iron again and started building my leaves – layering outward, leaf by leaf.
DETAIL SHOTS
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REFLECTION
Although the solder beads for the pins aren’t perfect (some bleeds still bleed through the protoboard holes), I loved this project because it was my first time getting to work with all these new materials and create something creative out of hardware. I first chose to shape a flower because of my observation of the iron build-up, while soldering. However, from the process of creating the sculpture I also developed the meaning for the piece and it also inspired the theme I chose to do for this course.
To me, this piece is a reminder to always look at things in a different way. Delicate flowers and industrial materials usually don’t belong in the same sentence, but combining them together resulted in a special and meaningful flower.
When I entered college I was an English major and your stereotypical art kid. I never touched code in my life. Failing AP Physics in high school was enough to scare me off of anything STEM related ever since. I never thought CS and me would belong in the same sentence (or world). However, curiosity kept knocking and I decided to take my first CS course my sophomore year.
It was pretty brutal. I wasn't good. But, I loved it. Ever since then, I’ve taken numerous CS courses and although it has been a very rocky road with some courses kicking me in the butt, wouldn’t have done it any other way. It has pushed me beyond my limits. And through the journey, led me to product design, a field I've completely fallen in love with.
Living in a pessimistic society has trained our minds to only see the flaws and cracks in things. Most of the time we only see where we fall short, not our potential or where we could bloom. However, even under so much pressure and heat, if we are able to see things from a different perspective, we will find the spot of soil that we can grow and bloom.
This sculpture set the theme for my entire portfolio. Here's to looking at things from a different perspective! 🌸
Thank you to Professor Mark Santolucito for teaching this course! SO excited to learn more about embedded systems and about the project to come. Looking forward to a great semester!
Also, thank you to TA Miles, who gave me an extra two extra pin boards to restart on😅.
THANK YOU!