On Saturday the 11th of Feb, 2023, in 35° heat, I lead what is, as far as I can tell, the building of the biggest floating table tensegrity structure ever. How did this happen, and why did I spend so much time building this thing, just to take it down?
I can’t find any names for the various tensegrity structures, so I am calling this the floating table, since the top plane is often used like a table.
About two years ago, I stumbled across this image of a tensegrity structure - a structure held up entirely by tension in ropes. I went through all the usual steps - surprise, confusion, understanding, awe. The idea of building one of these myself had been occupying space in my brain ever since. These structures aren't new. There are many different types and styles, and countless examples of stunning structures being built all over the world. With the exception of these balanced pole structures, most of them are small-scale structures, built using 3D printed parts or strong components like metal. Nowhere could I find an example of someone building the massive floating table I had seen two years ago, and especially not out of wooden poles and ropes. At that point, I thought, 'wouldn't it be so cool to see one of these structures pioneered using massive 4m long poles?' Was that even possible?
My background in scouting set me up to test this out. We often restrict ourselves to building massive structures out of only poles and ropes (the occasional metal pulley) as a feat of creativity and skill. We've built towers, bridges, and cranes, all using specially designed knots and lashings. We call this pioneering. Some years ago, scouts built a tower and balanced a tensegrity structure on top of it at a community and arts event in the desert. Inspiring, but still the same structure I'd seen done before at a large scale. We had to see if the poles were strong enough, the lashings tight enough, and the forces balanced enough to work with heavy wooden poles in a massive floating table tensegrity structure.
The structure
I started with a small-scale model, thinking about the lengths of poles, the knots, and how the forces would balance. Some helpful discussions with people wiser than me helped me solve some problems, work out what needed extra bracing, and how the whole thing would be assembled. We then built a bigger structure using light 2m poles to test out the theory. This worked surprisingly well, so we were confident that a version with 4m poles was possible.
The following Saturday I met a group of eager 1st Claremont scouts to see if we could make it happen. We spent the next 4 hours measuring, building, tying, measuring again, and retying knots until we were finally ready to assemble. The big question was: would the structure hold its own weight, if we could even get it up there in the first place? With many precautions taken to prevent the top from falling on someone, we gave it a try. And it failed. Some knots slipped - the weight was just too much.
Not to be deterred, we analyzed, discussed, and planned how to fix it. We decided that by making the bracing stronger, we could make it work. With time for one more attempt, we got to work. Having learned from last time, we were more efficient at positioning the structure and the forces applied to the knots. We hoisted, pulled, and balanced the structure until all the ropes were tight. Tentatively, we let go of the support lines, and there it was. Standing, all by itself. It was wonky and off-center, but it was stable. And it was huge.
We didn't realise how big it would be, so didn't take the tree into account. I promise it isn't connected in any way.
Why?
The universe loves homogeneity. Left to itself, all matter and energy would slowly spread out, and be equal everywhere. We call this entropy. The gradual decline towards disorder. I believe that humans are subconsciously wired to fight this. We love rock stacks, neatly trimmed hedges, and awe at tall buildings (well, some of us anyway). We have an inner drive to stop the universe from pulling itself apart, and we do this by building and creating things. It satisfies our more primal needs and invigorates us. Once you know this, you start to see it all around you - paint would never naturally fall into place to create the mona-lisa, it takes energy and drive to create organizations as large as Apple, and an enormous amount of effort is required to gather the materials to build the train you use to get around town.
This is why we spent 5 hours in the hot sun, trying to build something we weren't even sure was possible, only to marvel at it for half an hour, enjoy our accomplishment, and then take it down. We did something that had never been done before, something the universe would have grunted disapprovingly at, had it that ability.
Two years in the making, and we had done it. Accomplishing something like this, something so grand, something that you aren't even sure it's possible, is a great feeling. Chase it. Build. Create.
Now we know it's possible, who is going to make it bigger and better?