My final project is based off the story of the Little Mermaid by Hans Christian Andersen. Of which, I did some research on the story and presented my findings in class.

I have chosen the part of the story where the little mermaid jumps in to the sea and gains and immortal soul while the prince sails off in a boat after he got married to the princess.

I decided on portraying the story in the way the ball bearing travels in the artwork.

These are my initial sketches when I was planning for this final project:

I had also planned out 4 main parts for this artwork.

1. The part where the prince and the little mermaid spends time together – to show that their fates intertwined which I use the crossing of two plastic tubes to portray that as the two ball bearings would travel along the tubes at the same time but pass by each other while they are moving down the tubes.
2. But they ended up being separated as the prince chose to marry a princess instead of the little mermaid – shown by having one ball bearing exiting from the left and the other from the right.
3. The little mermaid then jumps into the sea as the prince marries the princess,  but instead of turning into foam, she was given an immortal soul – This is portrayed by having the ball bearing exit on the left, dropping into a small metal bucket which then is lowered into the water in the container through the use of pulleys (representing the little mermaid jumping into the sea) and a plastic sphere moving upwards due to the pulleys (to represent the little mermaid gaining an immortal soul and going to heaven).
4. The prince marries the princess and moves off in a ship – This is shown by having the other ball bearing representing the prince to exit on the right and then falls into a boat which then moves off

After planning out, I went out to source for materials. Such as the wooden base to place the tall structure with tubes, the containers for the water, wooden sticks, the metal frame to hold the tubes. I did have go out to source certain materials which were not easily sold outside such as a plastic tube/hose that could accommodate the size of the ball bearings and the pulleys. The image below shows the process of my work in progress.