Week 16

Assignment: plan and document a final project that integrates the range of units covered

Programs/Machines:

Lessons Learned: PLAN, PLAN, PLAN!!!! (It will help in the long run)

I am interested in creating a data gathering device for environmental conditions to be fed real-time into a gallery setting, providing a more intimate connection between space and environment. This project will kick off further study into this medium of kinetic expressions. In my final project I will examine gathering data from the wind at Valldaura campus.

Many people have explored types of weather stations that gather certain environmental inputs, but their output is just data and isn't fed into another system.

This project by Francisco Sanchez Claria is focused upon the development of a fully functional arduino weather station, for kitesurfers to check the conditions at a prime surfing location.

Studio Toer has an amazingly dynamic light object entitled "Fiet" which provides some precedent as to what I would like the data to be fed into.

The interactive artist David Bowen works similarly at this juncture between environment and spatial mechanism, his work entitled "Tele-Present Wind" presents an interesting relationship between the two.

Plywood

Unique hinges

Wooden branches

Custom mechanical bolts

Fabric straps

Mechanical bearings

Specialized weights

Aerodynamic elements

Barduino

Electronic shield

Hall effect breakout boards

Most of the electronics that I will be working with are directly from the Fablab Inventory. The wooden tripod will be harvested from Valldaura as they are type of robust brush bush that blankets much of the Collserola nature preserve. Some custom parts I have been designing to connect different parts of the digital wind vane will be 3d printed with the Makerbots within Fablab BCN. I wanted to create a project that not necessarily is replicable, but rather is more enriched by the diversity of simple parts that add equity to the total creation.

Plywood - 3.00€

Copper tubing - 5.00€

3d printed elements - 10.00€

Wooden branches - fr€€

Fabric straps - 2.45€

ABEC 7 Mechanical bearings - 2 @ 3.50€ each

Specialized weights - 2.00€

Electronics - 10.00€

Total - 39.45€

One goal for my project is to utilize many different fabrication methodologies and create a design that reflects a coordinated chaos; playing with the difference rather than the regularity. I will be using traditional woodworking techniques to strip pieces of non-conventional wood of their bark as well as finish them in a way that is not normally reserved for pieces of brush-wood. I need joints between a lot of my found and fabricated objects, so these moments will be 3d-printed, laser cut, and also cnc milled at times.

3d printing

Computer-controlled cutting

Laser cutting

Wood working

Press-fit construction

Most of my design has been digitally completed, I will now start to fabricate, I understand that problems will arise in the process, but I will roll with the punches so to speak and address them on a case by case basis.

The biggest question that still needs to be addressed and worked out is how the electronics truly function. While I know I am working with a Barduino, a shield to organize the inputs/outputs/vcc/ground, and Hall effect sensor break out boards, I know that the calibration and orchestration of them all will be a mess.

Due to back up on every single machine within Fablab BCN I would like to sneak in every moment to cut/print/machine all constructed components as soon as possible. I have worked in the fact that materials may run out for many machines, so I am working with the chaos rather than resisting it.

I will evaluate my project by how successful my apparatus is at gathering data and providing it to a to-be-determined output.