I worked with Foxlin Architects as an extern from 1/5/20 – 1/30/20. I worked on making a small scale model of an interactive architecture project the company was planning to implement in China. The idea was to have many large structures, each about the size of a streetlight, that would resemble giant, bending blades of grass. Each structure would be placed on a grass mound, and the grass mounds would form a path. The giant grass structures would rotate and follow passersby as they walk through the paths. Furthermore, as the structures rotate they would play chimes.
For the small scale model, I ordered parts from ServoCity, SparkFun, and other companies to create a single stage gear reduction mechanism that utilizes a continuous rotation servo to rotate a small pipe. I had infrared obstruction sensors positioned around the mechanism and would block them one at a time to resemble the sensing mechanism we would have that tells if someone is walking by. I had a rotary encoder attached to the pipe, so that an encoded value could be assigned to each infrared sensor around the pipe. This allows the pipe to turn to the sensor that detects an obstruction. I used an Arduino to code this movement as a closed-loop proportional controller, so that as the pipe gets closer to its destination it moves slower and if it is farther it moves faster.
I was unable to fully complete the small scale model, but I was able to construct the mechanism fully. I was unable to completely finish the coding for the mechanism, but I got a lot of it done so the code could be easily finished after my externship period was over.
