Fungiversum
Album

Fungiversum is an electromechanical machine made for Art & Craft School Robotti's project, which focused on creating inspirational materials related to electronic arts. / Public domain

Selection of fungi illustrations from the Biodiversity Heritage Library, which served as inspiration for Fungiversum. For the final machine a subset of the printed images was selected. / Public domain

Spectacular images from NASA's Image and Video Library were combined with the fungal illustrations. / Public domain

Recycling cardboard was used to build the main structure of the machine. / Public domain

The cardboard was first painted with black kids' finger paint, as this was the biggest bottle of paint that I had. / Public domain

The black cardboard was given a spacey touch by sprinkling colourful paint on it. / Public domain

Lots of space cardboard. / Public domain

The fungi were cut out and glued on the space cardboard. / Public domain

Two DC motors with gear boxes from Robotti's material collection were chosen to move the fungi. / Public domain

After researching DIY videos, I decided to use caps from juice cartons and lids of jars as mechanical parts. They're easy to obtain and have circular shape. / Public domain

I also had some wooden sticks and paper straws at home, which were suitable for the axle construction. / Public domain

To create vertical movement (up/down) of the mushrooms, the caps were taped together and off-centred holes were drilled for placing the axle. The shiny tape reduces friction. / Public domain

The caps were hot glued on the wooden stick to ensure that they don't move in undesired directions. / Public domain

Holes for the cardboard fungi were cut based on the cap positions. / Public domain

Popsicle sticks with nuts as weights were used as cam followers for the moving fungi. / Public domain

The up and down moving mechanism with LEDs underneath. / Public domain

Regular blue and white LEDs were used. Four LEDs were connected in series for each LED chain. / Public domain

Testing the blue LED chain. / Public domain

Two DIY switches were made using nuts hanging on a ground wire. / Public domain

An aluminum foil basis was used as the counterpart of the switch. / Public domain

Ground wire connected to the power supply was taped on the aluminum foil piece. / Public domain

The whole switch mechanism. The popsicle sticks move up and down, moving the nuts. When the nuts touch the aluminum foil, the ground wires are connected and the LEDs turn on. / Public domain

The complete up-down moving fungi construction. / Public domain

A second DIY mechanism containing caps was made for rotary movement. / Public domain

The circular motion drove a fungi carousel, which was surrounded by LEDs. / Public domain

The circuit schematic. In the up-down moving fungi, there was one motor (always on) and two 4-LED chains connected to the two moving switches. In the fungi carousel, both the LEDs and the motor were connected to the switches. Diodes were used for preventing connection between 3.3V and 12V as well as flyback. / Public domain

At the end of the carousel rod, a piece of bent welding was added to move a big earthball fungus. / Public domain

A spring was connected to the holder of the big earthball to make it wiggle. / Public domain

PC power supply was used for powering the Fungiversum. / Public domain

A 'stage' was built for the fungi mechanisms. / Public domain

The NASA images were used as background. The yellowish Crab Nebula made me think of fungal mycelium. / Public domain

More mushrooms and leftovers of space cardboard were used for decoration. / Public domain

Final Fungiversum. / Public domain