Post 13: Portfolio

Throughout the course of this class, I have gotten the opportunity to fuse my engineering knowledge and skills with the thoughtful design of the many aesthetics that we have learned in this class. I have learned quite a bit about the different kinds of aesthetics out in the world, how they have impacted art and design throughout history. I have also gotten the opportunity to discover which aesthetics I appreciate, and want to incorporate into my own projects the most. The first project that I created for this class was the Upcycle project, where I decided to follow the Baroque aesthetic to build a violin lamp.

What I took away from this project, was how difficult, yet fun it is to upcycle something for a project, and fit it with a given aesthetic. A violin in itself already fits within the Baroque aesthetic, but turning it into a lamp, with light up LED strings, and still having it fit with this aesthetic is quite challenging. More detail on this project, and the entire design/fabrication process is detailed in the link below:

https://www.aesdes.org/2025/02/17/62432/

The final project that I made for this class was one of the most interesting and unique project that I worked on. The aesthetic was the main factor behind both the look, and function of this project, and I spent a large amount of time researching the aesthetic behind this project so that I could successfully replicate it into the project itself.

For my final project, I decided to create a Lunarpunk Moon Phase Lamp. This is a lamp that replicates the real time phases of the Moon using a stepper motor, while incorporating the Lunarpunk aesthetic. The Lunarpunk aesthetic is a very interesting yet un-explored aesthetic, which is what drew me towards it. Lunarpunk is often times referred to as the opposite of Solarpunk, with the Moon being the subject of most artwork. It often incorporates purples, and dark blues. More details about this aesthetic, and my reasoning behind why I chose it for my final project is detailed in the blog post below, which is also the first part of my documentation for my Moon Lamp project.

Moon Phase Lamp Part 1: The What

https://www.aesdes.org/2025/04/23/moon-phase-lamp-final-report-part-1/

The post linked above details the planning process that went behind this project, as well as initial design sketches, and my overall schematic and plans for making the Moon replicate the phases in real time.

Next, I documented how I created this project, from design, to fabrication. This includes details about my painting process, one of the most important parts of making this project fit the Lunarpunk aesthetic. It also includes details on how I built a circuit to make the stepper motor spin at the required rate to replicate the phases of the Moon.

https://www.aesdes.org/2025/04/30/moon-phase-lamp-part-2-how/

Overall, I think creating this project was a fun and rewarding learning experience. I am excited to take the skills I have learned, and incorporate aesthetics into future engineering designs that I am a part of.

References:

I did not utilize any outside sources in the creation of this specific blog post.