American artist Anthony Howe has designed a large kinetic sculpture to heighten the impact of the modest-sized cauldron during the opening ceremony of the 2016 Olympic games (+ movie).
Anthony Howe created the huge moving sculpture to amplify and reflect the light from the relatively small Olympic cauldron during this year’s opening ceremony, which was held on Friday at the Maracanã Stadium.
The metal sculpture is made up of hundreds of reflective spheres and plates organised concentrically around the cauldron and supported by a metal ring.
Each piece is designed to rotate independently around the ring, creating a pulsating movement and millions of reflections from the cauldron’s flame.
“My vision was to replicate the sun, using movement to mimic its pulsing energy and reflection of light,” said the artist.
“I hope what people take away from the cauldron, the opening ceremonies, and the Rio games themselves is that there are no limits to what a human being can accomplish.”
The sculpture weighs 1,815 kilograms and measures 12.2 metres in diameter.
Adafruit publishes a wide range of writing and video content, including interviews and reporting on the maker market and the wider technology world. Our standards page is intended as a guide to best practices that Adafruit uses, as well as an outline of the ethical standards Adafruit aspires to. While Adafruit is not an independent journalistic institution, Adafruit strives to be a fair, informative, and positive voice within the community – check it out here: adafruit.com/editorialstandards
Stop breadboarding and soldering – start making immediately! Adafruit’s Circuit Playground is jam-packed with LEDs, sensors, buttons, alligator clip pads and more. Build projects with Circuit Playground in a few minutes with the drag-and-drop MakeCode programming site, learn computer science using the CS Discoveries class on code.org, jump into CircuitPython to learn Python and hardware together, TinyGO, or even use the Arduino IDE. Circuit Playground Express is the newest and best Circuit Playground board, with support for CircuitPython, MakeCode, and Arduino. It has a powerful processor, 10 NeoPixels, mini speaker, InfraRed receive and transmit, two buttons, a switch, 14 alligator clip pads, and lots of sensors: capacitive touch, IR proximity, temperature, light, motion and sound. A whole wide world of electronics and coding is waiting for you, and it fits in the palm of your hand.
Have an amazing project to share? The Electronics Show and Tell is every Wednesday at 7:30pm ET! To join, head over to YouTube and check out the show’s live chat and our Discord!