Epic Software is the world's leading producer of health records systems.  Based in Wisconsin in the heart of farming country they wanted to connect with the history of the region by building a farm themed campus.  In a building known as "The Shed" they chose to create a sculpture that tied directly into the one of the most popular tractors from the hayday (pun intended) of American farming.  The Farmall Super M.  If there is an archetype for a red tractor it's this.  My task was to develop concepts based on ways the Super M that could be displayed in a unexpected fashion.  Ultimately this took the form of a wall displaying the entire component breakdown of a single tractor.  The concepts below are in reverse chronological order showing the development of ideas from abstract kinetic sculptures up through the final version shown here.

This is an actual Farmall Super M that I found in retirement in Eastern Washington state.  The tractor I used for reference for this project was in much better shape than this, but this one is as authentic as you can get for a 60 year piece of heavily used farm machinery.

Final layout progressed further than this, but the concept of showcasing every part of the tractor is show here. Blowup images on the wall provide a legend for the parts and their placement in the whole machine. 

A sketch of how the exploded view of the tractor could be explained.

Before epic committed to using the Super M, one idea was to section the wall by showcasing groupings of standard components from many tractors.  

Tractor bling.

One concept exploring recombining components to form a mechanically abstract piece.  

This is my favorite concept of the project.  A steering wheel is attached to a fabricated camshaft made from tractor parts.  When the shaft turns, individual seats sitting on pipes move up and down in a rhythmic waveform fashion, representing the endless boucing ride across furoughs.

Apparently I thought it was a good idea to consider assembling radiator grills with tractor wheels and then attaching them all together to form a connected row of line dancing tractor robots.

Some concepts for a complex crank system using tractor wheels and gear sprockets as pulleys.

The idea behind this concept is that a sliding bar moves along a rail flipping painted metal L brackets.  As the bar moves down the brackets display a secondary color.  It flip from green on one side to brown on another. This represents the changing colors as crops are planted, then grow, and are finally harvested.

This is a painting I did for myself to pay tribute to the tractor.  This is actually a Farmall Super C, a sibling to the M.