For this project, we are set to re-imagine a current piece of technology that did not exist in the past as though it had, pick an object we find interesting and then a time period that would work well.

• Idea generation:

I thought of a few interesting devices and then went on to associate some of the eras that justified their existence. The source of power was a big issue and some eras did not have electricity and needed other means to provide energy to make them work.

In the end I opted for the bubble machine which only needs to create wind power.

• Research:

My choice: Bubble Machine – Ancient Rome (753 B.C. to A.D. 476)

Reason: The formation of bubbles is that high-speed wind blows air into the soapy water, and the soapy water with high surface tension will form a film to wrap the air. The principle of the modern automatic bubble machine is that the motor drives the fan to create wind, and I put this device in the Han Dynasty in China, a period when there was already a hand-cranked device to generate power, and a hand-cranked bubble machine can be made for children’s entertainment.

Moodboard:

Research:

1. This is a picture of a spinning wheel from the Han Dynasty. In the picture, a woman sits on a chair and turns the crank with her right hand to drive the rope wheel to rotate to manipulate the yarn

• For the existence of the crank mechanism in this era, there are many evidences of the use of crank rotation in ancient Roman and ancient Chinese cultural relics. 

“ Roman Hierapolis sawmill (3rd century AD), the earliest known machine to combine a crank with a connecting rod.The earliest evidence for the crank combined with a connecting rod in a machine appears in the Roman Hierapolis sawmill in Asia Minor from the 3rd century AD and two Roman stone sawmills at Gerasa, Roman Syria, and Ephesus, Asia Minor (both 6th century AD). On the pediment of the Hierapolis mill, a waterwheel fed by a mill race is shown powering via a gear train two frame saws which cut rectangular blocks by the way of some kind of connecting rods and, through mechanical necessity, cranks. The accompanying inscription is in Greek.” (Wikipedia)

“Investigating the information of hand cranks similar to spinning wheels in ancient Chinese mechanical engineering, vertical hand cranks (meaning that the cranks are perpendicular to the horizontal plane) have been used in rotary mills as early as the Han Dynasty” (The Historical Changes of the Ancient Chinese Spinning Wheel)

• For water that blows bubbles, here are a few ways to make them in the Roman period / Chinese Han Dynasty：

1：Archaeologists have discovered soap-making workshops in the ruins of Pompeii in Italy. It shows that the Romans had already started primitive soap production as early as the 2nd century AD. The Chinese have also known for a long time to use plant ash and trona to wash clothes. They also mixed pig pancreas and lard with natural Xu to make blocks, saying “Yizi”.

 2. In Chinese ancient times, even cloudy days must be mixed with blue vitriol and colophony with rainwater and placed in a bowl. Make a circle with bamboo, point water and swipe it into the air to form bubbles, By sunlight, it turns into colorful colors, and it is called rain bubbles.

3. Another folklore method is to use the seeds of the Chinese Soap-pod Locust (This species is endemic to China and was used for bathing and washing clothes before the invention of soap) in water, this water can blow bubbles. The poet of the Qing Dynasty, Mr. Yeh Yu-hong, wrote in his poem “Phoenix Hairpin”, “I am bored with spring and have difficulty in sleeping steadily, so I am free to blow a dizzy bubble. The void, the round light, the window, and the curtain. The vermilion lips are sucking, the fragrant spring is moistening, laughing and holding a bamboo pipe to spray on the shoulder of the lang (an ancient word for male). The wind swings in front, the children wait, the pearls (meaning bubbles) are innumerable, and where are they in a flash, again and again” 闺中女儿以笔管吸皂荚水，吹五色泡为戏，此事未有人咏者。叶雨辀先生赋《钗头凤》一阕云:“春归闷，眠难稳，闲来吹个团团晕。虚空界，圆光蔼，窗边才过，又飞帘外，快快快。朱唇吮，香泉润，笑拈湘管郎肩喷。风前摆，儿曹待，明珠无数，霎时何在，再再再。”

In short, find plants with lots of saponin and put them in water to create a lot of surface tension to create bubbly water

• For the fan, there is a record in the Xijing Miscellany, Volume 1: “During the Han Dynasty, the Chang’an craftsman Ding huan …… made a seven-wheel fan, so large that it was one ten feet in diameter and continuous, and when one person carried it, the whole hall shivered”. This shows that as early as the Han Dynasty, someone had already made a large cooling fan with a wheel of leaves, and its effect was very impressive. It was a wheel-shaped rotating fan, with seven wheels connected to a shaft with a swinging handle at one end of the shaft, and the air in the room was stirred up by the rapid rotation of the seven wheels as soon as the handle was shaken. This large fan was then a patented high-tech product, a “luxury appliance” reserved for the royal family, and was difficult to find in the private sector. 
• For the part of the spinning wheel, according to historical records the earliest spoken of windmills were created by Persian artisans and applied in Persia in 644 AD. However, in China due to the chaotic winds caused by the geographical location and the frequent occurrence of rainy typhoons in the subtropical climate, the waterwheel was used more than the windmill, which is also the same principle of turning on a circular axis

Sketches:

The material of the main body is mainly wood, with possible wooden pegs to link the various parts, which were used in buildings in the Spring and Autumn period.

With regard to the impact on Han society, bubble devices could be added to toys marketed to children as a target audience, which could lead to a bit of economic development.

• Working Process:

The modelling process is to make each part and combine them together, with the emphasis on the parts that need to be animated separately from the main body, which needs to be arranged in advance, otherwise mistakes will need to be redone.

Finally, export the model in fbx format and adjust the materials and background lighting in sketchfab.