The Circuit Sculpture Contest on Hackaday is complete, and we have our winners! The top three entries received $200 in cash, while 9 runners-up won $100 Tindie gift cards. This contest brought out the artists hiding within makers all around us.
Whether you’re familiar with the circuits that make up these sculptures, or you love to appreciate fine art, you need to see these projects. Let’s take a look!
The Three Winners of The Circuit Sculpture Contest
You can check out a full list of the entries on Hackaday. The goal was to create a functional circuit that also offered an artistic spin. Makers took this concept and ran with it, leading to these three grand prize winners:
Wirez80 – Matseng
Our first winner takes a RC2014 Z80 computer and transforms it into a free-formed wireframe sculpture. As if this wasn’t enough, the project also features a hex keypad and a seven-segment display.
Using the proper firmware, one can control the computer in a similar fashion to the “trainers” that were used in the 80s.
Audio Man Circuit Sculpture – Dean Segovis
Our second winner is a project that utilizes the “dead bug” style of circuit building. It combines a functioning LM385 audio amplifier in the rib cage, eight hearing aid batteries in the spine, and a speaker in the head of a copper wire sculpture.
The skeleton uses the position of the arms for turning the circuit on and off. In total, this wonderful amalgamation of copper and components took roughly 30 hours to complete.
Electronic Sculpture – Kelly Heaton
Our third winner is someone who has been working on artistic circuits for several years. This is apparent in their work. The concept is a mama bird with her baby in a nest, sitting on a real branch.
The shape of the mama bird was made using surplus resistors, leaving it hollow on the inside. This is where the creator installed the free-form singing circuit. The baby bird is wrapped in a nest of wires. The object in the nest is an 8 ohm speaker wrapped in a heat-shrink tubing to muffle the sound. Both birds also feature a photoresistor that allows you to interact with their chirping.
A Round of Applause for the Runners-up
In addition to the three main winners, we had nine runners-up. These winners received $100 Tindie gift cards so they can continue their amazing work.
- Anemone – a freeform soldered space flower
- Freeform Astronomical Clock – an Arduino-powered clock that displays the lunar phase and Local Sidereal Time (LST)
- Freeform Robot – a robotic chassis made from scrap wire and servo motors
- Pollen8 – a wire sculpture with LEDs drive by a light-sensitive 555/4017 counter circuit
- Skeleton Watch – A wrist watch made using freeform wire construction techniques
- Freeform RGB Atari Punk Console – a well-known audio synthesis circuit assembled using brass wire, adding a pair of photo cells with LED illumination
- Treed – A “generative music” sculpture that anyone can build
- RGB Tree – an LED matrix connected to a tree sculpture
- Parts Bin Self Portrait – A meta-self portrait made from salvaged materials
Special thanks to everyone who entered! Keep an eye out for new contests in the near future, for the chance to win cash prizes and Tindie gift cards!
