At last week’s workshop, Katherine and Avery both mentioned an example of a CubeSat design that carried a payload of crayons or graphite to create a scribble patterned art work with the payload inside, reacting to the movements of the tethered balloon and CubeSat. This cool idea made me want to try it out for myself!
I used a 5" x 5" cardboard box with foam sheets on the inside to protect the payload.
I then tied three strings of friendship cord to pony beads on a dowel stick. The stick was attached to the inner top of the CubeSat with duct tape, and zip ties.
Two of the strings had crayons tied to them and the middle string had a ping pong ball wrapped in masking tape and double-sided scotch tape. Crushed crayon fragments were stuck to the sticky ping pong ball.
Finally, a sheet of paper covering two sides of the inner CubeSat was taped in place for the crayons and crayon-fragments to make their marks as the CubeSat moved.
After experimenting with a few different movements of the CubeSat, I decided to dump all of the crayon fragments I had left into the cube because the swinging sticky ping pong ball was not adding enough color to the paper inside.
After a few more shakes of the CubeSat I removed the crayon-marked paper inside to see what abstract patterns were created.
I think next time, I will use something heavier than a ping-pong ball so that the crayons and crayon fragments have more weight to make solid contact with the paper-covered walls inside.
The crayon marks on the paper inside were very light and difficult to see.
CubeSat movement over an extended period of time would definitely increase the number of crayon marks and art patterns on the paper.
Adding simple filters to the pictures of crayon-marked movements in the CubeSat make for interesting pieces: an inverted image, an x-ray image, and a skateboarding alien!
