Dieselzilla

A project currently in progress in  the Design Hub of American River College is called the “Dieselzilla vs. Drones” Project.  We start with interns Kevin and Sean, who are collaborating along with James Mullerleile on this project in the Design Hub.  Kevin is the programmer, and Sean is the 3D Designer behind this project. When we first hear the word, “Dieselzilla,” of course we are left wondering “what in the world is this, and what does it do?”

Well, Dieselzilla is the huge metal sculpture in the front of the Student Services and Cafeteria area (the huge glass building behind the American River College Library).

Every day on the way to class, students who walk past it are seen doing double takes. Most can’t take their eyes off of it- as mesmerizing as a well-crafted, fantastically massive Godzilla sculpture can be.  Most students on campus pass Dieselzilla every day and have no clue as to how or why it got there. Even our photography intern, Angelique, told us “Ever since I started attending, I wondered what it was and why it was there- and now I had the chance to find out,” before she captured some pictures of the magnificent metal beast.

Parts of Dieselzilla. Photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

The Design Hub interns discussed the structure of the sculpture. It actually moves around with the use of a hydraulic system within the Dieselzilla! To the right, we can take a look at what goes inside of the massive metal body. 

These are the parts that were designed and put together by our interns, and this is what makes the magic happen. With everything in place, Dieselzilla comes to life!

This is a very cool, collaborative project, as well as an impressive and intriguing presence everyday on our campus. 

Student Commission: Anime Character

Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Here we meet up with Erika Gonzalez, the artist intern at the Design Hub involved in past projects such as the Ishango Bones and the Cell Membrane projects. Now she shows us her beautiful new sculpture that she is painting for Jiajun Guan.  The people involved in this wonderful new project are: Erika Gonzalez, Jiajun Guan, and a team of 3D modelers and 3D printers.

Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Jiajun Guan found Erika painting the Ishango Bones (discussed in the other blogs and twitter posts) in the Design Lab 211, and was so inspired by her fantastic artistic talents with the paintbrush that he asked Randy, our tream ead at the Design Hub, to recruit her to do some work for him too!  Erika was assigned to paint the generic anime character for Jiajin Guan, and she finished beautiful painting in 11 hours of work from March 8- March 12! Soon this sculpture of the generic anime character will be moved from the Design Hub Room 311 and will probably be moved to a place for student to stop by and look at it, or it may be placed on Jaijun Guan’s desk.

Painted by artist intern Erika Gonzales, photo by photography intern Angelique Doty

Even though this beautiful sculpture is the only of her kind, we can all look forward to seeing Erika Gonzalez’s fantastic art skills in the future projects that she will be participating in. She will be collaborating with Jiajun Guan with the Snow Wars project, specifically, working on the development of “Snow Wars Santas.”

She uses the same techniques as the cell membrane and Ishango bones projects: she paints the sculpture first with acrylic paint, then seals in the paint with Mod Podge. What was different with this sculpture was the way Erika painted the eyes: with an ink pen!  She used the ink pen to add gentle and minute detail to the character’s eyes, giving them a certain life and sparkle. We are definitely looking forward to future art and 3D printing collaboration projects to come!