Introduction: 'Flight' – Suspended Kinetic Wave Sculpture

What if you could shape motion out of stillness—suspend time itself in the air with just a few threads?

This is Flight—a kinetic sculpture made from 99 strings and 112 recycled corks, designed to float, ripple, and breathe through invisible tension.

Supplies

Core Materials

  1. Set aside 112 wine corks (standard size) including 8 “mother corks”
  2. a roll of nylon threads (fishing line or clear beading string, ~10 lb test)
  3. 10 mm clear acrylic sheet (for laser cutting frame pieces)
  4. Closed-loop screw hooks (~224 pcs)
  5. Bearing + motor shaft coupler
  6. Wood/Acrylic cut out for motor cam (1/4” plywood works)
  7. Super glue (for securing knots)
  8. Electric motor (12V DC gear motor) - optional
  9. Power adapter - optional
  10. Deep groove ball bearing (~0.6" ID) - optional

Tools

  1. Drill with small bit
  2. Calipers, scissors, and ruler
  3. Laser cutter or acrylic cutting tools
  4. Clamps and pliers

Step 1: Inspiration & Material Testing

Flight began with a simple question: Could I create a sculpture in the spirit of Reuben Margolin’s square wave—one that captured the same graceful motion, but without relying on heavy dowels or metal rods?

I began experimenting with different materials suspended on thread—charcoal, miniature bricks, and cork. Little did I know, the answer revealed itself quietly, in the corner of our living room, where my father had been collecting wine corks in a bucket. Cork proved ideal: lightweight, easy to drill or clip, sustainable, and visually warm. For the thread, I chose nylon for its strength and near invisibility, allowing the corks to seem as though they were floating in air.

Step 2: Prepare Corks and Strings

Cork Prep

  1. Screw in 2 closed-loop screw hooks per cork for all the 112 corks. Screw one on the top, and one on the bottom of the cylinder.

String Prep

  1. Stretch the nylon to prevent it from curling
  2. After stretching cut the string into 99 pieces ~20–30 cm each.
  3. Use longer lengths if unsure—you can trim during install.

Step 3: Build the Frame

  1. Design a clear acrylic top piece with holes enough to fit the nylon thread through. For 112 corks (8x8), try a 9×9 grid with 81 total suspension points (some corks are supported top and bottom).
  2. Design two side pieces to hold the top piece up and a center and also the an (octagon) unit circle - the diameter of the circle depends on the amplitude you would like to waves to have.
  3. Space holes ~5-6 cm apart depending on cork + hook width.
  4. Cut the panels using a laser cutter.
  5. Assemble using methylene chloride for clean, bonded edges. My frame was about 60 cm × 60 cm × 30 cm deep.


💡 The clear frame vanishes from view, making the strings and corks appear to float.

Step 4: Suspend the Corks

  1. Start by tying one end of a nylon thread to a closed-loop screw hook at the top of a cork.
  2. Feed the other end of the string up through a hole in the top acrylic panel, then pull it snug.
  3. Now, think of this cork as the “mother cork”—it acts as the connector for the entire vertical column of corks beneath it.
  4. From the bottom hook of the mother cork, attach a second piece of nylon thread and lead that thread down to the center of the cam arm (the rotating unit at the base).
  5. Repeat this process for all vertical columns until each one is fully linked from suspending cork → mother cork → rotating center.

Step 5: From a Flat Cork Blanket to a Sine Wave

After assembling each vertical cork column and tying a string from each mother cork to a point on the rotating base, you’ll manually calibrate the system.


🧭 Calibrate for the Flat Position

Adjust the length of each string connecting the mother cork to the center of unit circle so that:

  1. All corks sit in the same horizontal plane.
  2. The sculpture appears like a flat suspended blanket.

Tie the strings together to form a knot once you have created a horizontal flat suspended cork blanket.

Step 6: Enjoy the Magic of the Waves

Move the knot you have just created away from the center of the unit circle and watch the mesmerizing waves start forming!


💡 How the Unit Circle Creates a Wave

As the motor begins rotating the cam arm in a circle:

  1. The attachment points on the cam follow the path of a unit circle.
  2. Their vertical position at any given moment follows a sine function:
  3. y = R x sinθ, where:
  4. R = cam radius (physical amplitude),
  5. θ = current angular position around the circle

Since each string is anchored at a different position along the cam’s circumference, they rise and fall out of phase with each other — producing a natural, rolling wave across the cork surface.

The magic is in the offset: as each string’s anchor point travels the circular path, it varies in height. Because the strings are pre-cut and fixed, the cork columns respond with smooth, continuous motion — a wave sculpted by geometry alone.


Enjoy!!