Hong Kong Museum of Science Energy Machine

This is the world’s largest kinetic sculpture and central piece of the Science Museum in Hong Kong. It is composed of two towers four stories tall, interconnected with tracks wrapping around each and passing above heads and under escalators around the central concourse.  The balls are elevated by means of an electric driven Archimedes screw or by human driven ‘hamster wheel’ like mechanism which runs a ball elevator.  From the top the balls take many passages on their descent, which can take up to 15 minutes to arrive at the bottom.  Along the way the balls are moving through various mechanical and musical experiments designed to show off various principals of physics, gravity, centrifugal force and energy transfer.  Peter Solomon was originally hired by West Office Design to help the design lead to develop the project by constructing a working model, along the way he developed many areas of the sculpture and resolved various details and was promoted to co-design and engineer the designs for production.

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