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Project Re-cap

The loftiness of goals in the initial weeks was incredibly hard to give up. Our project had begun at a project about "evil green" in which cigarettes and thermal electrics would unite to provide power. We saw this as noble enough simply because we were eliminating waste as well as providing energy. I still believe this is a good idea for a "smart surface", however it had no real place in the course at hand and probably would not go over well inside a gallery. I think the issue that really overcame our group was that there was never an idea on the table after this that any of us could get excited about. We tried and tried to come up with something new and exciting, all without making anything. Thinking by making is a tried and true method, and I continue to wonder why this did not happen any earlier. I feel that there were also quite a few issues in trying to please professors, all of whom seemed to want different things. Finding an idea that would fly with all professors seemed an impossible task, and I don't believe it was ever reconciled.

Editing: I think editing was something that our group had to do nearly every meeting, and I think that this was in large part the reason why our group had a successfully moving surface. Our lofty goals were continuously edited down until we reached something that we didn't just think, but rather knew that we could accomplish. I think that this method of editing is quite a contrast to the methods of other groups including the Simon robot, who seemed to really let editing happen by chance of mechanics not working out. However, I believe that their project did a much better job than ours of allowing group members to test out different territories, Mark learned to TIG weld for example. I think that this cannot be said about our group, as people somewhat stuck to respective disciplines during the entirety of the project.

Motivation came back to our team in the end when we began to see results. The project is full of small steps, and unfortunately we left most of these small steps until the last two weeks, and when people began to see the small steps materializing everyone seemed much more aboard the project than ever. I have to admit the idea was weak and I resisted it pretty much the entire time-I disliked the intention and really tried to deviate the project into other directions without much result. In terms of intention I thought the project was not a complete success, but in terms of getting a team together making a surface that could move and do something functional, as well as be a aesthetically pleasing thing, I believe it was a complete success.

Final Documentation

The Final Review went relatively well, and our surface was moving and responding so our team was reasonably happy with the outcome. The reviewers seemed to like the physical surface, but really had nothing good to say about our intentions, which were incredibly loose and never really materialized into anything other than a heliotropic snow-flinging smart surface. Here are some good snaps of the surface.

Week of...

The final fabrication of the surface was incredibly difficult to plan out mostly due the dependancy of certain tasks on the completion of other tasks. The coordination between group members, more cnc router time, and certain jobs proved to be the most arduous of the tasks. After Tuesday, and after the formica was finished routing we knew that time was incredibly limited so we worked all night to get the cells glued and soldered together. The teamwork really came together this week, and although there had been a few disputes between the work of a few members of the team, I feel that basically everyone was just ready to work. The night prior to the project was a tense one, with only a few of the cells working consistently. We had anticipated a few set-backs, and of course a few servos burnt out that were already screwed into the structure. We adapted and decided to have 1/2 of the cells move, which actually began to work out nicely provided a visual contrast of the motionless cells to the moving ones.

The architects had a structures exam at 830 the morning of our review, so we had to retreat a little early, but luckily Yuming stayed longer to get the code working really well and Mat came in quite early the next day to finish the structure.

I must tip my hat to Yuming, who was probably one of the hardest workers on the team-he pretty much put his head down and worked for the entirety of this project without any qualms or complaints. He tried to reach out and help with the fabrication and got to drill his first hole and pick up a power tool, which was awesome.

The routing nightmare continues

Routing is still a nightmare, and the only way to counteract it is to sign up for about 4x the amount of time that should be needed to complete any given file. In efforts to highly decrease the time necessary for routing use, I was able to ask Maciej, professor of Digi-fab and highly skilled with the router and materials, to help deal with the plastic and set up the correct files/bits to cut with. The most recent cell was not a cut-and-dry mill session, but rather Mat witnessed one of the fiascos mentioned in a pervious post and watched the bit go the wrong way around the material to produce terrible cuts and ultimately break and ruin part of the material. We were excited when Maciej agreed to help and spent the first portion of the week tweaking the design and setting up the files to be routed.

Much of the time you will be getting a graduate student to help route, and generally it is someone inexperienced, frazzled, timid, or overly ambitious. This is always worrying given the small amount of time given to routing and the large possibility for error as well as the large amount of money spent on the material. This particular Friday we had a grad student named Gretchen who really worked out great and was interested in getting our material routed in a quick and effective way, essentially the group really got lucky getting such a cool person for router help.

We were off to a relatively quick start and Maciej and Wes were able to watch the initial cells being cut and micro-adjust the speed of the bit to get the correct edges for the cells. Each row was routed into the .5" plastic and we were able to get all of our rows routed on Friday. I was incredibly excited that all of the rows were routed because I knew that it would permit us to do more week on the weekend as well as get everyone excited to keep moving on the project.

Routing 11/21

After the initial routing for the foam cells, the group decided that we badly needed an exploration of materials. Mat and Michele were able to run to the store and find a .5 inch black plastic that seemed to fit in with what we were looking for. It was durable and it was able to resist most of the bend that we were fearing after the decision to get rid of the lone cell and form the surface into rows. We were slightly worried that .5 would be too much for the servos to turn, but it seemed to pan out in a few simple tests that the group conducted.

Routing=Nightmare

Routing is always an issue when a tight schedule is to be adhered to. First the file must be made into a file that is easily transferred into mastercam, meaning that the rhino file must be a series of curves and surfaces that are to be mapped into routing paths.

The mastercam file then needs to be set up by a worker at the fab lab, and I have tried a couple times at making my own file only to be told that it has to be changed dramatically or redone- which is to be expected without really ever having any tutorials or training. The curves can be made into various paths for the router including contours (our cutlines are contours) and pockets (where the subtraction of material occurs below the solar cell.

The correct bit must be chosen between a myriad of different bits with various numbers of flutes, and we must input this into mastercam.

The largest and final step is that the routing must go smoothly, because quite often bad things happen when routing including broken bits, rouge pieces of material moving, incorrect calibrations, and overall human and machine error.

Mat was able to route these gems before thanksgiving, allowing the group to get a good grasp on what we needed to aspire to.

Less than Two Weeks!

With the most recent foam mock-ups for our heliotropic smart surface, we are beginning the final stages of fabrication. We attempted a few different material uses but have settled on 1/4 inch plastic to be the base of our cellular region. We are choosing to embed the solar cell into the routed plastic and cover the conduits to achieve a polished an clean look for the entire surface. Johanna and I sat on digital project for much of last friday playing with a cellular structure that would not be completely uniform and each cell diameter would begin to gradient or shift in size. After much thought about this, we decided that in order to achieve the assemblage of a uniform field that we were looking for, we would need to create cells that are uniform in size. The motion was what we began to become engaged with, and it is one that requires a uniform cellular field that is modular. We want to create difference with motion between modular pieces rather than simply add variation with shapes. A unique motion in an unvaried field will be much more interesting and aesthetically appealing.

Our surface will be sitting about 3.5-4' off of the ground, which means it will require a frame. We have decided that our durable/shy solar cell aggregation will be encapsulated with a water jet cut steel frame. This gives a few members of the group a long awaited shot at using the water jet cutter and help expand our insistence on a cleanly fabricated surface. Another concern is the servo strength, and the hope that they can spin these cells and allow our surface to work without that terrible noise (ehh err ehh) that servos make when they try their hardest to spin. Jason just emailed the group to say that all of our stuff had arrived so I am incredibly excited to be back in Ann Arbor early tomorrow to check out the new toys.

32 days...

The final Project has been a difficult one to swallow. After early ideas of cigarette recepticals, we moved in and out of focus of the final heliotropic smart surface. Our team has sat down for hours upon hours discussing the implementation of our final design and the who what why where how- the instructors have had their input and thrown more than a few ideas aside, small cellular mock-ups have been made and we are well on our way. This past friday the meeting with the instructors has led me to question the actual endgame of this project. As always there is a delicate balance between the truly thought-out and conceptual integrity of our surface and the formal and detailed fabrication of the surface. Which should have priority because with 32 days left, I beleive that one might be left behind? What do I prefer-the beautiful and operational surface with shakey logic or the well-intentioned nearly-operational surface.

I think with three weeks almost down the drain, we now need to get into fabrication mode, our why might strengthen as we go on. Our surface is an example of biomimicry, in which we use a protective motion that resembles the manner in which the mimosa plant moves to avoid harm. All of the reserve held by the group members and lack of interest in this particular project seems to go away whenever something materializes into an object. This is why we need to focus on making this week rather than talking.

Post-Project

In the project before the final surface was assigned, our team (team 4) began the two week duration with some really fertile ideas during the brainstorming session. We all aligned on the premise that our surface would enable the use of natural sunlight without going through another medium-i.e. turning to battery power. Throughout the first week we met on 3 different occasions without building much, but the idea of a shading/light regulating device that would attach the the facade of the building seemed to interest the majority of group members.

One of the first decisions came with the movement of the device and it became something we knew was achievable with stepper/servo motors and also something that Z had found to be a very real and unique bimetallic strip that is currently being tested. Afraid of going to far without truly refining what it was this surface did, we hit a road block by trying to decipher the why. For two more meetings our group sat idle trying to figure out how this might interact with sunlight/skyscrapers/convection/city dwellers. After more inconclusiveness we decided to learn by making and created a pretty decent mockup.

As far as group work goes, the entire group came together during the end of the two weeks. The first week was incredibly different to get everyone together at once and each meeting our group was missing a few links, this caused periods of catching up during the next meetings. However in the end, everyone really sought to step up and help with something they had or had not done before. I was especially impressed at those who jumped at the chance to take digital project responsibilities without much training or previous knowledge. In the end we had built a surface that operated in the manner in which we thought the "real life" materials might respond if embedded into the facade of the building. We had talked quite a bit about the presentation and representation of the project, and hoped that interesting enough ideas would supplant our inability to gain access to bimetallic strips.

Julian Bleecker spoke very long about the production of things being a precursor to the discovery of purpose and usefulness. Team 3 was able utilize the Hoberman Sphere and created a very intricate two dimensional one but in the end admittedly found little purpose in their design-which in a sense was what Julian seemed to be articulating as his prime way of working. Our team seemed to work similarly in that we discovered this movement from a set of materials and immediately made it our project. Nearly half way through we hit a road block and all working and making stopped in order to find out why and attribute it to something that would be helpful. In the end I believe this period of stopping hurt us in the way that our surface was not nearly as refined or cleanly/interestingly executed as the other groups'. We could talk about it a bit more in application but I begin to wonder about the end result if the making had not stopped nearly half way through. If we had constructed multiple iterations and explored extremes of this set-up, might we have found a better and more logical application?

MIT doing it big

A group of MIT Students have found a way to create sun-orienting solar cells with out the use of motors- thus increasing their efficiency. They used materials that replicated the heliotropic nature of plants that bent their pv cells towards the light.

http://dmse.mit.edu/madmec/helio.html

forcedgreen blog writes...
"They designed the system to imitate the way plants track the sun across the sky, by using the difference in temperature between shaded and sunny areas to change the properties of the material supporting solar photovoltaic cells. The system, once built, is completely passive, requiring no power source or electronics to control the movement. Solar cells that track the angle of the sun can be 38 percent more efficient at generating power than those that are mounted in a fixed position.
The team explored several different variations of the proposed system, using various materials including polymers and bimetallic strips. The system that shows the most promise, they said, mounts solar panels at the top of a curved arch made of a pair of metals such as aluminum and steel, which should be durable enough to withstand the elements with little or no maintenance.
The team demonstrated a scale model of the arch by shining a spotlight to warm up one side and cause the arch to bend, tilting the solar panel toward the light. They explained that the prototypes are cheaper than existing systems for tracking the sun and could be built from materials that are readily available in developing nations."

Week 4

This week, our group of artists, architects, and engineers came together to build a pretty intuitive model. The focus of our model was a surface made up of a small mesh pattern who would open up and become more permeable with based on the intensity of sunlight. After a few nights of consideration and multiple ideas and mach-ups we had come to design of a three-serv0 hexagonal design that intended to be cellular and repeatable. The intention of the legs were to be twisted upwards in order to stretch the material and permitting sunlight to enter in order to power/store energy. The final model came out quite clean looking and well coded. We had tried a multitude of fabrics and materials and found that the legs could not stretch some or could not cause the desired effect with others, but the spandex seemed to have quite a bit of stretch while still remaining taut.

Nearly halfway through the week we were faced with the problem of how the code would work and if we had wanted to plot the sun position or if we wanted to use a real-time input. Our group opted for the input with the LDRs feeling that the weather might have quite a bit to do with how our surface would react and this may do a better job of harnessing sunlight.

The project relates directly to last week's heliotropic model. We were able to get this guy working using the standard code and 4 LDRs along with two pivoting servos. The group worked diligently during the hour we had for class but we had an incredibly difficult time honing in on the code and finding a suitable way to run these motors. The initial design had us using the LDRs as stationary elements, this method was later switched in favor of an easier and more concise set up in which the ldrs would be placed on the moving armature.

Arduino Groups

Friday we were split into new groups with the goal of creating a mechanism whose input is light and whose output is a motorized reaction. We were off to a quick start because we were told we only had about an hour. Our group quickly organized an idea that dealt with placing 3 LDR sensors on separated planes and using a servo to follow a flashlight which would be used to activate the LDRs. The Idea seemed simple enough and we divided jobs and got to work without the goal of perfection-rather just to get something working-in response to the multitude of failures last week.

We went about the coding by trying to patch together the two codes from earlier in the day and we had a difficult time getting this to work. A tip of where a single axis code was online came a little later and we tried to utilize this and add another axis. This took nearly the entire time and in the end, only one axis was working correctly. I noted stirrings from the rest of the group who talked after the project about how no one was on the same page and how the design was new to them-I agreed to an extent and perhaps those with the driving force behind the design should have illustrated it a bit better but really thought that this issue would have been addressed with a tad more time for the completion of the project.

Arduino #1

The first color is blue, as I move my hand away the blinks become less rapid. When I reach a certain threshold (around 20 in), the color then turns to red and blinks even less rapidly. After the red (when my hand is around 5o inches away) the green light comes on a stays solid. I move my hand back quickly and the next reading lights up the blue again. The number of blinks are proportional to the distance away from my hand, which is also proportional to the number of readings the rangefinder takes. I was pretty happy with the result.

I had an old Rangefinder hanging around and I decided to put it to use with the lamp. I used a pretty simple piece of code that permitted three different lights to turn on with specific time lapses that were designated by the distance from the rangefinder. The Rangefinder definitely is not perfect but I got the results that I was looking for.

A Few Iterations of the my standard lamp...

I was able to get some laser time and made a small 3"x3"x3" lamp out of acrylic which was pretty easy to frost and to stuff with some trace to get the right look going.

I have had a bit of experience with arduino already, but the first couple of tutorials got me reacquainted.