Aidan Mao
Aidan Mao is a first year at McMaster’s Engineering 1 program who loves mechanical design, CAD, and building robots. He is former captain and current mentor of FRC Team 7520, alongside a mech/fab lead at MacRi3D.
Outside of robotics, Aidan started GalleryBox, a youth-led public art project that aims to install gallery boxes in parks and schools to promote youth art and make creativity part of everyday life in the city.
Media: PLA, servos, power systems, soap, fan
Blowing Bubbles is a robotic arm emerging from a sculptural pile of iridescent, bubble-like forms. A realistic hand extends, dipping a wand into soap, raising it before a fan that sometimes releases bubbles, sometimes nothing at all. The cycle repeats: fragile, playful, and unpredictable. Robots are built for control and precision, but here the mechanics meet impermanence and absurdity. This slow performance transforms a childhood act into a meditation on ephemerality. By asking technology to create beauty that cannot last, the work explores the tension between engineering and fragility, seriousness and play, memory and fleeting reverie.
