This project involves using TurtleArt to generate geometric patterns, laser cut those patterns onto wood panels, and assemble them into lanterns that cast intricate shadows.
Group members: Xinyue(Kiera) Zhou, Xinyao(Eva) Xu
The original idea for this scene came from a famous Chinese poem, “烟花三月下扬州“, which means “Downstream to Yangzhou amid misty April flowers.”, where Yangzhou, a city in the south of China, is my beloved hometown. Thus, the three main modules: the pavilion, the fireworks and the river flow are chosen to represent the classic elements of Yangzhou culture.
I chose to apply a randomized algorithm in order for the pattern to have the random beauty of staggered sizes. The disadvantage of applying a randomized algorithm is that it takes very many runs to select an image with just the right layout. And since in the initial cardboard printing attempts we found that when the fireworks overlapped, the overlapping parts would disappear instead of still retaining the overlapping pattern, to make sure that the fireworks would not overlap, we changed the original random number of 5 to 4 and ran the algorithm more times to ensure that they did not overlap.
(Here are some examples of previous trials:)
Besides, Another challenge was to draw the pavilion with mathematical shapes, as some of the endless decimals and angles have no way of being represented in TurtleArt if one strives for precision, so as you can see from my hand-drawn sketch on the left, I sought to get as close as I could to reflect the symmetrical beauty of the pavilion.
For this part, I want to discuss the typical roof tile style used in Chinese gardens located in the southern region of the Yangtze River, mainly in Suzhou and Yangzhou. To create this pattern, I plan to use a series of semi-circles and adjust their xy positions to achieve the best possible view within the frame.
I can easily code out all the patterns for this part, but the main constraint is to simplify the code and make it only one repeated pattern instead of two, considering that even rows and odd rows repeat differently. It also takes some time to adjust the whole frame to ensure that the view within the frame looks harmonious.
For this part, I want to discuss the typical begonia pattern used in Chinese garden windows, which can be normally characterized by four semi-circles.
The begonia pattern is from the Ming dynasty to mimic the flower begonia. Due to the harmonic relationship, the begonia pattern is often given the auspicious symbolism of “peace in the hall” or “wealth in the hall of jade”.
To create this pattern, I split the task into two big parts:
Out of the two elements, the first one is quite complex. Therefore, based on the code screenshot on the left, I divided the repetitive pattern into three parts: (1) a single flower, (2) a row of flowers that repeat, and (3) repeated rows of flowers that fill the entire view.
The main constraint is to simplify the code and make the whole begonia pattern consists of only one repeated pattern instead of two, considering that even rows and odd rows repeat differently. It also takes some time to adjust the whole frame to ensure that the view within the frame looks harmonious.
