Camille and Boyuan Midterm: An Internet Legend Coming to You Live from a Press Fit Box

The Nyan Cat. An internet sensation that graced our computers on April 5th, 2011. A little grey poptart cat that runs endlessly across our screens with a vibrant rainbow streaming behind it to Hatsune Miku repeating “nyanyanya” in the background. Despite the extremely niche (and even questionable) music choice and kawaii pixel art style, the Nyan Cat is widely known by many, even those who didn’t happen to be chronically online in lower school.

We decided on the cone pulley design almost as soon as we saw it. It was the most interesting design on the front page of the 507 designs, and that was good enough for our team. It is mechanism #9 on https://507movements.com/, and features 2 cones of the same size inverse to one another. When the cones spins, because they are inverted, one cone will spin faster than the other based on which position on the cones that the band spinning between the pulleys is on.

After deciding on what mechanism we wanted to use, we needed to think about a visual aspect that could make our overall project appealing and operate with the mechanism we’d chosen. Camille came up with the idea that we should make a zoetrope, which set the path that both the crank and the zoetrope should be on the same side of the box. With some rapid sketching, we created a basic Illustrator file of circular disks that would make up the cones. Through makercase.com, we designed a case that would house the two cones.

After a round of laser cutting (we later learned was not necessary to synthesize the low fidelity prototype), the box was more or less ready. We were in a time crunch to get the box ready, so we didn’t do extensive testing on how much power and speed it would take to cut through cardboard. All that is to say the low fidelity prototype looked rough. Our cones were a little off center and didn’t spin as properly and smoothly as we aspired them to, the axles they were anchored onto were skinny wooden dowels, and we had to move the rubber band spinning between the cones up and down them by reaching into the box and fiddling with the rubber band until it snapped into the right place (or the wrong one, which was sometimes onto the dowels and almost pulled the prototype apart more than once). Nevertheless, we proved that despite the quality being low for even a low fidelity prototype, the concept of our model was moving in the right direction.

There were multiple iterations of the zoetrope. First, there was the fact that we’d (mainly Camille :’)) misunderstood the key component of how a zoetrope worked, and tried to place the movement frames on a flat circle with a viewing box on top of it. An early sketch shows this, and then we’d plan to laser cut the images onto a flat wood circle. After doing some more research, we realized quickly that this would not work, and that we needed the frames to disappear for a split second to actually appear like they were moving to the eye. The second, extremely low fidelity version of the zoetrope were the printed frames of the the Nyan Cat’s running sequence strung together with tape and strips of scrap paper sticking up between them to create the illusion of movement. This version successfully created the illusion of movement, so we could confidently move on to the medium fidelity prototype knowing that our zoetrope would function properly in the final iteration.

Moving on to medium fidelity, Boyuan completely forgot that the cones have a diameter of 4.5’ and made the bearing slots wayyy too close to each other and away from the sides. After discovering the laser cutter shuts off at 2 in the morning, Boyuan had no time to re-cut anything and had to drill out and sand out two holes that can actually fit the bearings and the gears. (The stars were extra bright 4 in the morning) 🙂

Assembly was a pain since the wood dowels were either way too big or way too small for the otherwise standard bearings. We did try to order the correct size dowels BUT…they wouldn’t arrive until after the scheduled due date. We thought of a workaround by stuffing a cut up rubber band into the gap between the dowel and the bearing. As a result, no glue was used and the cones were sturdily locked onto the dowels. The same was for the bearings as we expected delivery of dowels that will have a better fitment. As jank as it was, the model was functioning better than expected. The all wood construction was sturdier than the cardboard, so we opt-ed for a higher tension rubber band.

In the medium fidelity production of the zoetrope, it was determined that animation would come out best if in color and in the highest contrast possible. In Adobe Illustrator Camille traced over all the Nyan Cat frames to get rid of the navy blue background and only focus on Nyan Cta’s movement.

Once this was finished, a sticker page needed to be made to stick each individual frame to a rectangle cutout that would stand as a single frame as a piece of thin acrylic with a vinyl backing inserted into a base circle with slits in it that would hold each frame in place. The vinyl backing was white for maximum contrast, and then each image of Nyan cat was printed onto a vinyl sticker sheet (purchased from Michael’s because the OEDK did not have vinyl that could be printed on with ink) with an inkjet printer, cut and resized, and then stuck onto each frame in the correct order. Once this was done each acrylic rectangle was inserted into the wood base circle securely so no pieces would fly off while the zoetrope spun.

Still, the medium fidelity box was too ugly and unrefined. A reprint with the correct bearing slot placement was done and reassembled. Dowels were cut down to the correct length, and a handle made from scrap material was put on (kind of last minute because people were all over the laser cutters Monday afternoon). Minimal wood glue was put on select connections such as the zoetrope, handel, and base stands. The top lid of the design remains removable, and the shifter stabilizing rail has its ends wrapped in tape so that it can be removed when needed but stay in place when operating.

The final assembly was challenging due to rubber band pulley needing to be seated before putting down the top lid, but it was near impossible to seat without the top lid holding the inverted cones in place.