Insects

At first we had to draw some characteristic of insects we hate. As it was being a bit restricting, it was later changed to any characteristics we either love or hate of any creature we consider pests.

I chose the praying mantis as I like how fierce it is, even though it looks so weak and the form of its body is similar to a twig, it actually is very strong.

It can down a humming bird or even a lizard double its size.

I was interested in its foreleg which was a very flexible weapon it had. The foreleg can be used to attack as well as defend and it can also be used in many other ways like climbing.

Then we started drawing the parts that we either liked or disliked so that we could study them better

After drawing we started making the the parts with materials like clay, foam, wood etc. I made the foreleg of mantis with clay to understand the form even better.

Then i made it with wood to study the movement while keeping the form and figure some simple mechanism. This later became my prototype model.

Later some students who had similar study were grouped up. I was teamed up with Devesh and Samkit who also were studying weaponry of insects. Devesh was studing the stinger of a scopion and Samkit was studying the mandibles of the stag beetle.

We had to show the movements of the mandibles in a form of a machine. We used the string mechanism to show the movements of the mandibles, the right lever was used for the inward movement and the left lever was used for the outward movement. The lever had to be used alternately for the movement. When both lever were pulled the head would do a upward movement.