Laney students build giant insect using wood and computers

by Michelle Snider

Sculpting professor Leon Dockery of Laney College built a new curriculum that exhibits “trans-disciplinary” thinking using reverse engineering.

“ ‘Trans-disciplinary’ means we are bringing together a variety of focuses to achieve a goal,” Dockery said, while sculpture students worked on the structure in the FabLab area in late April.

The first sculpture to exhibit this new engineering is called “The Fly Project,” a large-scale indoor public art piece made of wood.

The sculpture class is collaborating with FabLab to make 3-D sculpture by mixing “Autodesk Technology,” a 3-D sculpting technology, with traditional sculpture techniques. Students also use computer-aided design and computer-aided manufacturing (CAD/CAM) software to deconstruct a pre-existing sculpture, scan its content, and scale it down. Then, they cut out a “maquette,” which is a small preliminary model.

A Computer Numerical Control router, or “shopbot,” cuts the sculpture material, which is then assembled by Dockery and FabLab students. Once they have determined that the design is functional, they increase the scale to the desired size and do final cuts and assembly.

Learning the new technology is useful in architecture, industrial design, and commercial design. “It’s about students taking ownership of how the planet’s going to look, and how we cure the things around us,” Dockery said.

Michelle Snider is a staff writer at the Laney Tower.