While I am known for filming botanic timelapse, I also do a lot of custom engineering. This is some of the work i enjoy the most. Whether I am building cinematic filming platforms, soda can launchers, robotic arms, or prop pullers, food launchers or can spinners, it is the challenge of bringing a concept to life which I love the most.
If you have need for a custom robotic build please reach out to me.
Triffid and Friends
BBC Green Planet
Working on BBC’s green planet was an amazing job. The contract had a lot of requirements and very little time to accomplish everything. In six weeks I had to design and build three robotic field kits called the Triffids (seen above), three large 6 axis gantry style studio timelapse robots, and two 7 foot tall tower robots.
The tower robots are prefect for filming small plants that can grow tall. With seven axis of movement they can put the camera anywhere within a 6 foot tall, 3 foot wide, and 5 foot deep shooting area.
Highly accurate and reliable, they have recently been retrofitted to work with Unreal Engine for Virtual production.
The MetBot
The Metropolitan, called the Metbot for short, is a macro 3d photogrammetry robot commissioned by the metropolitan museum of art. There was a need to scan many tiny objects to create a virtual 36 catalog of small pieces of art.
In order to accomplish the imaging, focus stacking is utilized to combine many images with varying focus positions to a single merged image with the entire subject in focus.
For the requirements of 3d Photogrammetry, the system automates not only the stacking of 3 cameras simultaneously, it also rotates the subject on a glass base allowing for high, medium, and low perspectives to capture every angle of the subject.
Not only is the Metbot a fully customized and novel system, it also required a custom built controller with dedicated firmware for this project. All of this work from the frame cutting, powder coating, pcb development, and code was all done in house.
StormBreaker and Mjolnir
Bayer had a new product called Trivolt, which is an herbicide that guarantees zero weeds in a field. In order to demonstrate this they reached out to timelapse expert Dustin Farrell. They asked if it would be possible to build a few long term solar powered timelapse sliders to bring movement into a 8 week shoot. Dustin contacted me to discuss the possibility of building two of these systems within just a few weeks.
The result is Mjolnir and Stormbreaker, named after Thor’s hammer and axe. These systems had the requirement to move over the course of 6 weeks and be able to withstand the elements up to and including tornados
These sliders were approx. 8 feet in length, each system weight about 80lbs and would be staked into the ground with rebar. Photosentinel capture systems were mounted for this shoot
8 weeks later, the shoot was a success.
