Week 16
Applications and Implications
In this assignment I'm going to answer some important questions about my final project which I named REFLAX in order to make it clear to anyone who wants to know what is the idea behind this project and how does it work and many other questions.
First of all let's have an idea about What is it going to do?
REFLAX is simply a type of a kinetic sculptures that operates using actuators not using the power of the wind or any renewable energy as it's known about the kinetic art. So it's going to be an interactive sculpture that interacts with any object that stands infront of it and makes some movement as walking by or getting near to it from different angles and so on.
So in order to get this straight, we can have a look at Who's done what beforehand?
After watching around million videos and surfing the web about kinetic art, I found this amazing video about an innovative lets call him artist who makes different interactive sculptures and mirrors with different materials, motion mechanisms, and lights. The main difference between what he is using and what will I'm planning to use is that he uses stepper motors as his actuators and I'm using DC motors.
Also from the most amazing videos that I have seen is this one from Reddit and actually he was using some sort of mechanism that I didn't recognize and it looked amazing. He also used actual mirrors not some reflective plates as I am planning to do.
What I am going to design here is:
- Motor moving mechanism
- Motor driving board with the MCU (Slave board)
- Master board that will communicate with them all
- The board that will be holding the whole project
The materials used will be as following:
| Name | Description | Qty | Price ($) |
|---|---|---|---|
| Attiny1614 | MCU for each board | 12 | 0.99 |
| L9110S | Motor driver H-bridge | 12 | 0.8 |
| DC motor | The main actuator | 12 | 1.33 |
| Limit switch | Micro limit switch | 24 | 0.21 |
| MDF board | For holdeing the mechanisms | 1 | 5.33 |
| Jumpers | Female to male jumpers | 3 | 1.86 |
| 3D printed parts | The moving mechanism | 12 | 27 |
| Laser cut parts | The front plates | 12 | 1.07 |
| 93.34 | |||
The systems that will be made:
- Motor moving mechanism that I'm designing on SolidWorks, the design will be made according to 3D printing rules as the design will be printed after that.
- I2C protocol to communicate between the master board and the 12 slave boards.
Many processes will be used here as:
- 3D printing The moving mechanism
- Laser cuttingThe front plates
- Communication I2C connection between boards
- CNC router The board in the back
- Embedded programming Programming all boards
What questions need to be answered?
- Is the project working?
- What patterns can it make?
- How sensitive is the distance sensor?
- Is there any interference between the plates while moving?
- How smooth is the motion?
How will it be evaluated?
- Is it working efficiently?
- Does it look good? (as it's art at the end)
What is the plan of Action? - Implementation
I'll be working on spirals in this project, as I will be making 1 working module which requires a full CAD of the motion mechanism and 3D printing it, then adding 2 limit switches 1 for the upper movement and the other for the lower one.
And after each successful module I will be adding 1 more in order to get them all working together using a successful I2C protocol communication.
Later I will be deisgning the board that will be holding all the modules I made together, and will be cut on a router machine as It's thickness will be 12mm as minimum.