StrandBeests: 3D Print Crazy Live Animals… Well Almost

While browsing Shapeways this afternoon I stumbled upon something that caught my eye. No, it’s not another life saving device that has been 3D printed, or even something that you can get any real use out of, but I still could not look away. What are these 3D Printed objects you may ask? They’re Strandbeests, and they have been created by an extremely talented fellow by the name of Theo Jansen.

Theo is a 65 year old Dutch artist with quite the imagination, who gained fame for his work with PVC piping in the 1990′s to create what were also known back then as StrandBeests. They were basically large structures that could move on their own, many resembling animals or insects. Because of the fact that they have several leg-like extremities, they also usually have the ability to move on sand better than wheels can. Unlike a wheel, only small portions of the “Animals” need to touch the ground. Many Strandbeests can move on their own with the help of a wind driven propeller. The work was quite an engineering as well as artistic feat.

Theo has recently decided to take those same skills and apply them to 3D modelling and printing, bringing his creations to Shapeways so that anyone around the world can buy his famous StrandBeests. He has produced the following video, somewhat humorous, showing off his new 3D printed Beests, comparing them to wild animals:

Currently he is offering four different Strandbeests on Shpaeways, they include the following:

• Animaris Geneticus Gracilis
• Animaris Geneticus Larva
• Animaris Geneticus Ondularis
• Animaris Geneticus Parvus

Prices for his little works of art range anywhere from $39 to $110, and make amazing coffee table toys. You can discuss these little creatures in the 3DPrintBoard Forum here: http://3dprintboard.com/showthread.php?1518-Introducing-Theo-Jansen-s-StrandBeests

ORIGINAL: 3DPrint
by Randall Desmond
January 24, 2014

Theo’s organisms

ORIGINAL: Chemoton

6 July, 2012

Video – Animaris Gubernare (AG), is one of the most recent Theo Jansen’s Strandbeest‘s (strandbeest.com) machine animals. Born in October 2010, AG died out in October 2011. It had two external (rolling) wind stomachs which serve as an anchor against strong winds.

Since 1990, only by using plastic tubes, lemonade bottles and air pistons as logic gates, powered by wind, Theo Jansen has produced some quite incredible machine animals. His creatures are designed to move – and even survive – on their own. In some cases he have recurred to Evolutionary Computation(more) as a mean to optimize their shape in order to longer survive hard storms and salt water. He briefly explains:

“(…) Since 1990 I have been occupied creating new forms of life. Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat. Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storm and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives (…)”, Theo Jansen, in Strandbeest(strandbeest.com).

But he goes a step further. Not he only develop sensors (for water sensing) as well as a full Brain, a binary step counter made of plastic tubes, which could change his pattern of zeroes, overtime, and adapts. Have a look (minute 6, second 33) … :

Video – Jansen‘s Lecture at TED talks, March 2007 (Monterey, California). Theo Jansen creates kinetic sculptures that walk using wind power (featured in a few previous short sifts), here he explains how he makes them work. Incredibly, he has devised a way to optimize the shape of the machine’s parts and gait using a genetic algorithm running on a PC and has actually made logic gates out of the air pistons making up the machines. His work attests to a truly jaw-dropping intelligence.