Blooms
These 3-D printed sculptures, called blooms, are designed to animate when spun under a strobe light. The rotation speed is synchronized to the strobe so that one flash occurs every time the sculpture turns 137.5o—the golden angle. The placement of the appendages is determined by the same method nature uses in pinecones and sunflowers. Each petal on the bloom is placed at a unique distance from the top-center of the form. If you follow what appears to be a single petal as it works its way out and down the bloom, what you are actually seeing is all the petals on the bloom in the order of their respective distances from the top-center. The number of spirals on any of these blooms is always a Fibonacci number.
Images and words courtesy of John Edmark