New York City, NY
Toni Ann Hoffman
One Small Step For Women
Class: 3D Modelling
School Year: Freshman, Spring
With the basis of creating a public sculpture, I was inspired by the works and research conducted by Katherine Johnson, specifically her calculations for NASA.
The piece shows details of her trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 Freedom 7 mission. With this, I also included the Apollo 11 Command Module, since she was part of the team that calculated the path to get to and from the Moon.
The final piece presents Johnson's calculations beside a visual of the Apollo 11 Command Module.
Public Piece
Keeping in mind this would be displayed to the public I wanted to create a piece that made the user walk around the piece and truly explored all its details as a while rather than stay their stagnantly.
Focus Subject
The piece revolved around Katherine Johnsons, an American mathematician who calculated and analyzed numerous flight paths of multiple spacecrafts during her time with the U.S. space program.
She did calculations for Alan Shepard's trajectory and the Apollo 11 mission that helped computed the path from and to the Moon.
Although Katherine held an abundance of accomplishments in her life time, I chose to focus on her calculations specifically.
Process
I started off with lisitng all her calculations as accurately I could with past records. In a true setting these would be served as plaques covering the entire strutcure.
This layout and assembly was as close to the trajectory notes as I could get.
Body
The body mimics the moon, a significant part of Katherine's career. With this I created a light up clay base to serve as the base of the entire structure.
Alan Shepard's Trajectory
Katherine Johnson did the trajectory analysis for Alan Shepard’s May 1961 Freedom 7 mission.
This is the main piece I focused on through looking at the numerous accomplishments she held.
Concept Model
I created a 3D Model to better understand my vision with this project. With this I created a light up moon base that holds a rotating structure made from wood and recycled materials.
Imagined Space
I envisioned this piece to sit at the center of the NASA Central Campus Headquarters Building at the Kennedy Space Center in Florida.
I chose this to be an important donation to the NASA headquarters and emphasize the need to praise and treasure such an accomplished woman who I believe was one of the most important people during many of their missions.
Final Design
The overall render helps get a cleaner look, creating a neater environment. Althoguh for the final piece I would still go with the clay base that mimics the moon. The rotating structure would be recycled metal from old NASA projects.
Apollo 11 Command Module
As Katherine helped with the calculations to get from and to the moon I included the module to nod to this accomplishment.
Alan Shepard's Trajectory
The plaques suurounding the rotating structure would contain the trajectory notes Katherine used for the Freedom 7 mission in May 1961, America's first human spaceflight.
Movement
The peice would rotate back in a circle as the Module would move around the notes.
Moon Base
With Katherine's accomplishments with the Moon mission I decided to include a light up moon base to highlight the overall piece in the indoor setting.