With a deadline coming up and after some time concentrating on the mechanism and code of the product it was time to take another look at the shape of the flower. If this were an Industrial Design course or a real development of a product we would have decided the exact shape and visualization before the mechanics and coding of the product. But this is a mechatronics course and time is very limited so we have to prioritize mechanics and electronics. It doesn't mean we have to black box the shape of the flower completely.

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We did some quick sketches of a possible idea of the sketch, and tried to make it work with the mechanics we had. We discussed if the flower should have curved midribs, and decided it might work and proceeded to a mock up with this idea.

To create the curved midribs we soaked wooden skewers in hot water. The skewers were bent and then put in tension in a small pot. Water was added to the pot and then set to boil to heat the wood thoroughly. Pot with skewers was emptied for water and then placed in the sun to dry. This resulted in satisfying evenly curved skewers and would be a perfect representation for the midribs for a mock-up. 

The petals of the flower were made out of silk paper. We came up with an idea to take advantage of the rotating motion of the spine plate and thought it would be cool to have another flower on this plate that was rotating, this was made quickly with cardboard and silk paper. The mockup worked and was somewhat satisfying ..

Finally we tried the mockup with the motor and gearbox to see if it would work.