This was a project I undertook with Jon Hsiung. We wanted to explore the ideas of Movement and sound through wood. We decided to use the butterfly joint as a point of departure and went from there.

We started by exploring where gaps could be placed to change the resonance of the wood so that if a ball glided along, it would create changing sounds.

Then, we decided to think about making the space between the two joined peices of wood controlled and moving. However, we felt like creating a path for a ball to glide along was not really capturing the essence of a butterfly joint, which is the ablity to control the angle between two surfaces that are opposite each other. 

We realized that by allowing the gap between the two pieces to move, we could create movement and sound in a way that truly embraced the nature of the butterfly joint. 

Then, we compounded the effect. As the number of members increased, the sound became more and more unexpectedly playful.