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Here you can see the multi-wheel approach that works so well with Wild Gears.
Just look how gorgeous these spirograph gears are. Aaron Bleackley creates his prototypes with a laser cutter at the Vancouver Hack Space and they are manufactured to order by Ponoko.
More delightful gears in the Wild Gears spirograph set.
Spirograph drawings can become instant coloring book material, as you can see here.
This spirograph creation is called "All Glory to the Hypnotrochoid."
Another spirograph creation with colored pens.
A simple spirograph drawing.
The lines on this one are bold and smooth.
A framed spirograph creation.
A schematic of the Encyclopedic Gear Set from Wild Gears. Bleackley notes that this set has "'A' and 'B' gears with different hole placement. This means that for most gear sizes in this set there are two of any size; gear 27 A and gear 27 B for example. The difference between the 'A' and 'B' gears is that they are identical except for the pen holes on one is aligned with the gear teeth and on the other they are aligned with the gaps in the gear teeth. This allows for aligning a hypotrochoid and epitrochoid based design which would otherwise be offset by 1/2 gear tooth."
The Modular Gear Set from Wild Gears is "a set of puzzle pieces that can be snapped together. Each piece is an arc segment of a ring. Combining them allow for the creation of wobbly, wavy, wild shapes."
The Plentiful Gear Set "allows for even more variety in the themes explored in the Full Page Gear Set."
The Enormous Gear Set "is designed to make the largest designs possible and includes gears reaching >30 cm in diameter with up to 360 teeth. This gear set is truly massive and requires quite a lot of space and large paper to make full use of."
The Strange Shapes Gear Set from Wild Gears is an extension for circular gear sets. Bleackley says it's "designed to explore the wonder of odd shaped gears. This set includes a wide array of shapes and sizes of non-circular gears in all their glory. This set is a lot of fun to use but is not recommended to be used on its own."
On a recent trip to Vancouver, I visited the
Vancouver Hack Space
(which is awesome, by the way), just to see w
hat local makers were doing. There I met a soft-spoken guy named Aaron Bleackley who introduced himself as the creator of "the greatest spirographs in the world." Wait, what? Is that really a thing?Spirographs were invented in the late nineteenth century by mathematician and electrical engineer
Bruno Abakanowicz
, but didn't become a popular toy until the 1960s. They allow you to create a wide range of kaleidoscopic designs by putting your pen into one of many holes in a set of interlocking gears, then using your pen to push the gears around an outer ring. I hadn't used one since elementary school, but Bleackley's passion reminded me of how satisfying it was to watch those amazing designs appear under my pencil.
The best part is that Bleackley wasn't kidding with his humble boast. He's the creator of
Wild Gears
, a company that makes several spirograph sets that are guaranteed to please your mathy, artsy, weirdness-loving mind. He prototypes his acrylic gears using a laser cutter at the Vancouver Hack Space, and fans can order his kits
through the Ponoko store
.
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A video of using Wild Gears "in real time with birdsong," from
Spirographic Art
.
A former environmental chemist, Bleackley has so far funded his work with two extremely
successful
Kickstarter
campaigns. His work is beloved by
the spirograph community
on YouTube, and his goal is always to create bigger and better designs (he's got a tutorial on 1001 things you can do with spirographs
here
).
Bleackley told
Ars
that people like his gears because they're transparent, so you can see the art emerging as you make it. But mostly they love the nutty creativity of his gears, which come in basic round gear sets, but also in "strange" shapes and snap-together pieces that allow you to create your own gears. One of his recent sets even does something that spirograph fans thought impossible: it allows you to
create parallel lines
in your design.
Watching
Bleackley's spirograph videos
made me realize that this art form is an even geekier and more satisfying version of the adult coloring book craze. You can make your own geometrical shapes, then color them in. It's an incredibly
soothing activity
that engages your mind and results in very cool images.
Listing image by Aaron Bleackley
