Thursday, September 23, 2010

Motion Detection (PIR) to Start Servo Code

This code is a combination of the Servo code from the Arduino guide and the PIR code from smartsurfaces.net/pir


#include <Servo.h>
Servo myservo; // create servo object to control a servo
int pos = 0; // variable to store the servo position
int ledPin = 9; // led connected to control pin 13
void setup() {
myservo.attach(9); // attaches the servo on pin 9 to the servo object



 pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT); // declare the ledPin as as OUTPUT
 Serial.begin(9600); // use the serial port
}
int pirSensor = 0; // the passive infra red sensor will be plugged at analog pin 0
byte val = 0; // variable to store the value read from the sensor pin
int statePin = HIGH; // variable used to store the last LED status, to toggle the light
int THRESHOLD = 5; // threshold value to decide when detected motion is movement or not


void loop() {
  val = analogRead(pirSensor); // read the sensor and store it in the variable "val"
  if (val >= THRESHOLD) {
    statePin = !statePin; // toggle the status of the ledPin (this trick doesn't use time cycles)
    digitalWrite(ledPin, statePin); // turn the led on or off
    Serial.println("Motion Detected"); // send the string "Motion Detected" back to the computer, followed by newline
 for(pos = 0; pos < 180; pos += 1) // goes from 0 degrees to 180 degrees
{ // in steps of 1 degree
myservo.write(pos); // tell servo to go to position in variable 'pos'
delay(15); // waits 15ms for the servo to reach the position
}
  }
  delay(150); // A delay to avoid overloading the serial port



}


Warning: some of the comments may no longer be in the correct places


Team Roles...

Like I wrote (typed still doesn't sound as cool) before, we split up into two teams to see which directions we would want to take our 2-week surface. It was interesting that the team that I was not on (Jason, Chris, and Joyce) went for a patterned, organic-looking installation for a wall or tall-flat surface while the team that I was on (with Alex and Jim) went for a solo, self-containing design. I don't think both of these could have gotten fully developed without splitting up for a time. We chose to go with a sort of "pod" design that can be installed on a window and will respond to rain and temperature given the correct sensors.

For the team that I was on it seemed like Alex was our Rhino expert for the week, Jim was the construction and vision director and I felt that my role was to help construct, give info about greenhouse materials, and build a presentation. Yes, I finally got to use a little specialized knowledge! I thought it was exciting, anyway.

Here are some pics of our designs that we made in the process:





The theme of geometric shapes, scales, and modular forms can be seen in our prototypes.  The last picture is actually just a modified version of the pentagons from our first prototype.

Wednesday, September 22, 2010

New Strategy

This week the team formerly known as Design Team 1 has taken a new strategy to make our prototype better. We decided not to be completely tied down to our prototype from last week, but to build on it and use the comments from our presentation to move forward. We are thinking on many different scales of size now and decided to break off into two sub-groups to allow for more prototypes to be built.

At this point the two group system seems to be working because less ideas get shot down with less people and each small group gets excited and takes ownership of their designs. I think this method will be tested tonight when we get together to choose our direction for the next couple of weeks. This could end well or everyone could be too in love with their own designs to leave room for the other half of the team to give input. I'm really excited about the new concepts, but I don't want to give anything away just yet...

Sunday, September 19, 2010

Reflecting on Week 1

Well the first full week of the Fall 2010 semester felt like the longest week of my life, so I wanted to distance myself from it for a while to better understand what went on. First I want to discuss how our team worked together and our roles on the team and then talk about our first presentation and the results.

There were definitely some positives and negatives in our team dynamic (we still need a good name for ourselves), so first I will delve into the plusses. I liked how our team would bounce ideas off each other and build on the previous thoughts. It was also good that we were all able to go down paths we were interested in to test the boundaries and limitations of different approaches that went along with the same theme. One thing that should be improved on for this week is decision making. I'm not sure if it was just that no one wanted to step on any toes or if we just weren't confident in our own ideas, but it took the team far too long to pick a direction. I think this could be helped by thinking apart for a while and coming back to the group with a well thought out idea.

The roles that each person played on the team were dynamic and changed over time, but these are the basic Belbin roles that I think everyone played: Chris-Implementer, Jim-Plant, Joyce-Monitor/Evaluator, Alex-Monitor/Evaluator, Jason-Completer/Finisher, and Me-Team worker. This is just the way I see it and they didn't fit for the entire week.

We gave our first presentation on Thursday and it seemed to go pretty well. We were all a little nervous because our pentagonal hexacontahedron didn't fold up on its own and wasn't a new shape, but I think the possible applications are so varied that this doesn't matter as much. Hopefully, I find the computer connector for my camera and get some pics up soon. I really appreciated the feedback from the instructors and classmates and after reverse brainstorming with Dr. Shteyn we will have many leads to follow for this coming Thursday. Personally I have been thinking about scale a lot more. What could we do with this shape if it was the size of a building or the size of a pea? The shape is so versatile that it actually could be applied on many different magnitude scales.

Anyway, this class makes me think A LOT and it kind of tires me out, so I will let you know what's going on at a later date.

Wednesday, September 15, 2010

Open-ended Nightmares

It may seem that having no firm set of rules for designing something would make it fun and free, but to me it’s more like a bad dream to me…you know the ones where you know there was something you were supposed to do and you can’t figure it out and you can’t wake up either. I may be exaggerating a little (or maybe a lot) and the team seems to have a good supply of ideas, but I feel like my contribution is minimal. It actually makes me uneasy that there is no textbook or lecture slides to fall back on. The amount of ideas and degree of creative thinking of my team members amazes me and make me feel a little guilty that I am not at that level, yet. Hopefully a time will come soon where my expertise (whatever that could be) will come in handy.

Friday, September 10, 2010

Designers, welcome to the Runway

It isn’t every day that I feel like I’m on a reality TV show, but I am now almost certain that I’m being unwittingly filmed. We walked into a room with resources that I didn’t even know the Dude had…a soldering station? It reminded me a lot of the first time the designers on “Project Runway” get taken to Parsons. The instructors then proceeded to explain their philosophies, goals, and pasts to us (I’m not sure which is Michael Korrs, Nina Garcia, or Heidi Klum). Some of their work and ideas are quite fascinating.

During lunch we watched an episode of the show “Prototype This” in which the team tried to make a gecko-inspired superhero suit. The methods they used for prototyping such as laser-cutters and getting 3D models printed were new to me because I am used to having the material be the subject as opposed to the making of an object be a subject in a design. It was nice to see the guys succeed but what was even more interesting were the attempts that failed…I certainly never thought about applying a voltage to Mylar to get myself to stick to a wall.

The video was then followed by a field trip to the Architecture building’s workshops and fab lab. Checking out all the resources that are in that one building was another shock to me and I’m a little jealous of all the hands-on work they get to do. I always thought there would be more hands-on learning in the engineering curriculum…I mean, we have lab courses that get our feet wet, but we don’t ever really prototype and construct in materials science courses.

Once we got back from our tour the parallels to “Project Runway” commenced once more. We were broken up into our teams and given our task and some of our design criteria for our first assignment: using only chip board make a “surface” with at least 9 interlocking parts that is smaller than 3’ by 3’. Wow! Ok, that’s a little open-ended, so then we were told that we would draw 2 more criteria at random (can’t you just see Heidi standing there with her bag full of buttons?). Our team chooses “exposed” and “shapes that cover curved surfaces efficiently (the example given to us was the shapes on a turtle shell).”

The part about the criteria that poses the most interesting problem is the seemingly opposite nature of these last two constraints. How can you make something covered and exposed? Originally the whole group was thinking along the same lines…the surface could expose something at one point in time and then cover it at another. The objects we thought about were the turtle shell, a retractable dome, eyes, etc. We also discussed the shapes and mechanisms of these objects as well as geodesic domes and soccer balls. This is where, I think, our ideas started to become unique and take shape.

When someone tells me to cover a curve efficiently I immediately think polygons and lots of straight lines…you know, get the highest atomic packing factor possible, go with hexagons! But listening to the other members of the group I realize that not only would they not necessarily be the best, but also curved shapes might make a surface more functional and pleasing to the eye instead of the harsh shapes I was thinking of. We discussed different ways of exposing and covering from flipping and rotating to telescoping…this is about when the instructors a.k.a Tim Gunn came over and said something along the lines of “Maybe there don’t have to be two stages in time, maybe it can be covered or exposed at different points in space.” Hmmm. Why didn’t we think of that? Of course this is where they should have added, “Make it work.” but that would have given away the fact that we were actually on a “Project Runway” spin-off show.

This is when the ideas really started to flow, especially after we were told to look up Hoberman’s switch pitch. Of course this is also when we had to start getting ready to leave. We all decided to go home and think about it and to convene Friday and Saturday to discuss and start construction. Honestly though, I felt it was much easier to think together than I have been able to do since we left Design Lab 1. It is really difficult for me to come up with actual design concepts by myself, but I have thought of some possible inspirations such as the World Cup 2010 Jabulani and a mobius strip.

About the Jabulani’s design:
http://www.popsci.com/technology/article/2009-12/science-behind-jubulani-adidass-2010-world-cup-soccer-ball