Spring 2018: Witness tree
Instructor: Dale Broholm
Total Time: 4 weeks
Adams' machine is a marble machine created to reflect the inequality between the rich and the poor in a society. John Adams, one of the founding fathers of The United states, was deeply aware of this problem when he was serving as the 2nd president. This machine is made to illustrate John Adams' problem in a physical and mechanical way.
Witness tree is a class in the RISD Furniture department. Students in the class are given pieces of lumbers that came from a particular site with a significant history. The Students are required to learned about that particular history, and then create a wooden piece using the lumbers from the site.
The majority of this marble machine is created from the trees that once stood in Adams National Historical Park (U.S. National Park Service).
Machine in action:
This marble machine is operated by two people, one representing the poor (marble pump), while another represent the rich (marble launcher).
The oversize marble is control by the launcher side (rich), which controls the pumping side's (poor) marble feeding system.
Sketches:
Process:
