Last Turn is a chess set that continues Spinagu’s studies on profiles and turning. Each chess piece shape is directly related to the fabrication logic of a pair of robotic arms: the first arm stands still throughout the entire manufacturing process, holding a spinning CNC router in the exact same position and orientation; while the second arm does the majority of the work, orbiting and spinning the stock of material in space around a set of circular paths. It takes the same time for the arm to complete one full turn and one full orbital path. Two important consequences emerge from this laboriously choreographed manufacturing process.

The first one is formal: the chess pieces are planimetrically round, but their elevations have clear sides, suggesting they were formed by both acts of extrusion and revolution. The second one is technological: the tool path (the trajectory that the tip of a cutting tool follows to produce the geometry of the workpiece) is in this case, not a path, but a point. Instead, there is a stock path: a choreographed motion of matter that combines orbiting, rotation and axial tilting, inverting the typical relationship present in common material technology protocols: inert matter vs active tool.

XI.
Last turn
another
turned
chess set

LAST TURN

PROJECT TYPE
Product Design

PUBLISHED
Sessions Vol. 2, SCI-Arc Press

TEAM
Maxi Spina
Jia Yi Gu
Ravyn Crabtree

PHOTOGRAPHY
Spinagu

THANKS TO
Ramiro Diaz-Granados
Hernan Diaz Alonso