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.