October 2012
P*A*St introduced their specially-designed Fluorescent “Pheidippides” drawing machine at the Cardiff Half Marathon on October 14th 2012.
Pheidippides, made primarily of light gathering fluorescent acrylic, positively DAZZLED in the glorious October sunshine and prompted many excited comments, interactions and – not least – some fabulous illustrative experiments.
DESIGN:
Amelia conceived the design for Pheidippides with exquisite hand-cut paper cut-outs (below) drawing inspiration from Polish folk art and theaters.
Peter then vectorised the paper cut-outs and incorporated them into an fully engineered working 3D CAD assembly model. The components were then laser cut at Cardiff School of Art & Design using data from the completed CAD model – with extra special thanks to Mike.
The ineffable qualities of line, form, flow and proportion made by Amelia’s trained illustrator’s hand – the ‘Marks of the Maker’ – are clearly recognisable and preserved in the digitised laser cut artifact. The quality of hand-cut line; the momentary interactions of hand and brain that crafted the original paper cuts have transferred well throughout the digitising process to create an intriguing, yet high performing product.
To save from carrying water bottles by hand during the Medoc Marathon we created the:
‘Run To Draw’, Easy-Fill, Non-splash, Hydration Funnel (below):
Hydrating liquids can be poured into the wide-mouthed funnel by my colleague Amelia or a kindly steward. The funnel features a non-return valve to stop splash-back during running. Liquids are sipped through a funky sci-fi esque drinking straw.
Cross section view of the specially-designed ‘Run To Draw’ Easy-Fill, Non Splash, Hydration Funnel showing non-return channel (below):
Sci-fi Drinking Straw (below):
Keeping to no more than 5 Minutes per drawing
And to help us keep within 5 minutes per drawing, we added this less than practical ‘Sand Timer’ (below):
