Pulsar is my first sculpture to use  of color and metal.  I discovered that by adding not just colored, but textured metal, Pulsar’s kinetic patterns expanded with illumination. Pulsar's video shows just one of the dynamic effects that can occur with an overhead spotlight.

Another goal for Pulsar was to create a sculpture with a very long run time.  You may already have found that most of my kinetic sculptures receive their movement from the energy released from a wound-up constant force spring.  The speed of the sculpture and its resulting visual effect plays a big part in how long the sculpture will run on a full winding.   In order to achieve a long run time, I needed to create a slow moving sculpture with a pair of pattern wheels that would produce the optimal visual ‘pop’ at slow speeds.  After several prototypes, I finally found what I was searching for.  During my sometimes discouraging trial and error process, I discovered that 2 slightly different spirals between the front and rear wheels were accentuated at slow speeds.  To top it all off, Pulsar has a runtime of nearly 30 hours! 

Although the metal colors shown in the photographs and video are green and silver, I would be happy to use your choice of metal colors for your Pulsar.

Pulsar is propelled by a single stainless steel constant force spring that is fully wound by placing an index finger next to one of the spokes of the lower right drive wheel and turning counterclockwise for about 22 turns. Once the drive wheel is released, Pulsar will receive its first 'push' from the spring which lasts less than 2 seconds. The spring will not be needed again until the rear pattern slows enough to rotate backwards.  Once the rear wheel rotates backwards, a mechanism is tripped that allows the spring to impart another 'push'.  This cycle continues for up to 30 hours.