Introduction: Kinetic Wave Sculpture

About: Fab Lab Irbid is a small-scale workshop for personal digital fabrication, equipped with an array of flexible computer controlled tools and various materials, with the aim to make almost anything.

This project is a kinetic sculpture integrated with Bluetooth speakers.
The mechanism of the project depends on the motion of many wires connected with each other, so if a special rotation happened to the wires, then the particles will start moving like a wave.

- This project is done by fablab Irbid`s CNC expert, Moath Momani.

For more information visit his website :Moath Momani

Step 1: Materials and Tools.

The main components of the project are :

  • Nema17 stepper motor.
  • Atmega328p.
  • Amplifier IC LM384N 5w Speaker Potentiometer ULN2003AN.
  • Bluetooth Audio Receiver.
  • Oak Wood
  • Acrylic 8mm thickness
  • PLA for 3D printing

Step 2: Sound System

To play music we integrated a Bluetooth module. first, we have to make the amplifier circuit, for the project, it is more than enough to use a 5 Watt per 8-ohm speaker and we used an amplifier IC LM384N.


To add two speakers left and right, we play the music by using Bluetooth receiver. The components we used to make the PCB using Roland SRM-20 are :

  1. 2 x capacitors 470uf 50v instead of 500uf because its the only available
  2. 2 x capacitors 5uf
  3. 4 x capacitors 0.1uf
  4. 2 x resistors 2.7ohm
  5. 2 x LM384N 6.LED
  6. 1 x capacitor SMD 10uf
  7. 1 x resistor 499 SMD
  8. Voltage regulator 5V
  9. Power jack 5mm

In the schematic, we have designed two lm384n microcontrollers for the two speakers, and also we used a 5 volts voltage regulator to feed the Bluetooth module.

You can see in the above the board after milling, and soldering the components.

Step 3: Motion System

In order to make the motion system, we need to overcome the wires friction, so we used a high torque stepper motor.

The components of the motion system board are :

1. ATmega 328p

2. ULN2003AN stepper motor driver.

3. Power jack 5mm

4. Crystal 16MHz

5. 2 x capacitors 22pf

6. 4 x capacitors 100uf

7. 3 x capacitors 10uf

8. 1 x capacitor 1uf

9. 2 x LEDs

10. 2 x resistors 499 ohm

11. 3 x resistors 10K ohm

12. Voltage regulator 5V

13. 2 x power MOSFET IRLML6244TRPbF

14. 2 x diodes

15. 2 x terminals 3.5mm, two pos

16. RST button

17. Pin Headers

The stepper motor code is attached.

Step 4: Design and Manufacturing

  • To make the design we used Solidworks CAD Software for drawing the parts and the assembly for the project, you can find the source file in the attachments.
  • For the body manufacturing, we converted the 3D parts into 2D to cut them using the Shopbot CNC machine using the following settings:
    • Used 10000 RPM because the oak is a hard wood not a soft wood so I have to reduce the speed.
    • Feed rate is 2.5 inch/s.
    • For the slots we used 1/4" flat end mill with RPM of 15000 and feed of 2 inch/s.
  • For the outside acrylic box and motor parts, we used the Trotec engraver speedy 400. The acrylic thickness is 8mm so the cutting variables that we used are :
    • Power 100%
    • Speed 0.18
    • Lense 2"
    • Frequency 60k.
  • For the stepper motor holder, we used the Ultimaker2+. Because all the load will be on the holder we increased the infill by 25%. Here are the printing variables:
    • Nozzle 0.4mm
    • Material PLA Infill 25%
    • thickness 1mm
    • Wall Thickness 1mm
    • Layer height 0.2 mm

Then made the sculpture chain by hand as shown in the pictures.

Step 5: Putting It All Together

To finalize the system, follow the below steps:

  • Used plastic hooks for the thread connections.
  • Add LED strip with 8 colors so the light color will change based on the switches.