top of page

Projects

 

Nebraska Innovation Campus 

Grand Opening Ribbon Cutting Machine

I submitted an animation (see below) of my proposal for the NIC Ribbon Cutter. 

It is 8 1/2 feet tall and driven by three large stepper motors.

 

Along with myself, a team of mechanical engineers, electrical engineers, artists and other talented people, we designed and built the machine which ran on October 8, 2015.

Team members came up with the idea of cutting the ribbon with a 10,000 volt arc from a Jacob's Ladder. Every team member proved vital to the completion of this project.

3D Model with Backplate
The Rocket Ship position
"Trinity" position
NIC Logo position
Actual Ribbon Cutter Onstage

The initial proposal animation at left, shows the machine's three panels moving from the Teardrop position to the Logo position and back but in practice the machine stopped at several other positions to reveal various patterns, some of which are shown above.


In the presentation, I was able to simply scrub the animation playhead in QuickTime to show those positions, though unfortunately YouTube does not facilitate precision scrubbing.

 

The highly professional video below, tells the story of the making of the machine and the significance of Nebraska Innovation Studio, the Maker Space in which the machine was built.

The video was shot and put together by UNL staff.

The Making Of...
Back Story...(see what I did there?)
The Drive System (Designed by Lou)
Taking Shape
Wiring the Trigger Button
Ribbons, Circuits, Bearings...
Counterweights? No problem.
The First Panel
Mounting the Panels
Panel Assembly
Danger Wil Robinson
About Ready to Roll
Ignition
Testing the 10,000 volt Jacobs Ladder

© 2021 Gregory Johnson

 

bottom of page