Methodical Madness Caps the Semester

Well, this sucks. It's 1:20AM, December 19, and I am leaving for home in... 9 hours, driving 10 hours. I will be awake, in a car, driving, longer than I will sleep tonight. It's going to be terrible. As such, I can't write nearly as much as I would like to write for this final post.

I will say that this semester, this class, has been the most valuable class that I have taken at Michigan. The principles I learned, the people I met, the discussions I had... it was life-changing. Max, John, and Karl were right, not surprisingly. They are truly brilliant, in their own ways.

I came into this class resigned to the idea that I was going to be stuck a metallurgist as an engineer. I knew this wasn't actually the case, but it was difficult not to think so.

I will miss this class. I will hopefully keep in contact with as many of the people as possible. I know it won't happen with most, but the people I met were all rather great in their own ways. Even those I did not get along with quite well, I had great respect for.

For those considering taking this course next year, and thinking it may be too much work - do it. It may be a lot of work, but it is worth it. Trust me.

Now, for a shameless plug!

I am continuing with another blog: Concrete Theory

Hopefully at some point it will be worth the read.

Methodical Madness Makes an Update

Our group is humming along, and with Thanksgiving over we have been back in the saddle, moving towards completion of the final project at a brisk pace.

Currently, we are divided into three task groups, with each team having their respective tasks.

Build Team: Brieana, Josiah, Pete, Taylor

Coding & Circuitry: Neil

Documentation & Logistics: Me

I feel that this division plays well to the strengths of each of the teammates, and when I am not writing I help the build team as an extra pair of hands.

Module Design

As described previously, we are making a modular light-adjustment system. The modules are structural, and made of 8 pieces of acrylic with 4 triangular pieces of aluminum for bracing and aesthetics. I have included an image of the module in an assembled state.

Gallery Design

Our gallery piece will eventually look like this:

With light in front and LDRs behind the wall.

Project Status

Currently, we are producing the individual pieces of the module, and assembly will progress for the next few days. I will make a rather large informative update with step-by-step photography at some point in the near future.

Methodical Madness is On Track

So, our final project is humming along at this point. We had a productive session on Friday, and plan to have quite a bit done by the time break hits Wednesday night. We constructed and tested three modules with LDR light detection behind them to determine variance of values. We also built some simple code that can get the job done, which will get more complex as time goes on.

Unfortunately, I'm not really able to directly contribute to much this week. I'm flying out tomorrow evening for an interview, and won't be back until Monday evening. This leaves Tuesday as my only available day. As such, I have moved back to coding from working with our build team, since I don't have to be as present and can get more done in less time. I just don't have the hands-on skills with the mediums we are working with in order to contribute significantly. It happens.

It appears everyone's blogging has fallen off at this point. I really don't feel so bad that I haven't done as much on my blog in recent weeks, after looking around at other peoples' blogs.

Methodical Madness Makes Progress

Our project still has issues, there is still a lack of excitement, but we have gotten to the point where we have a direction and we are just saying 'go'. It is more important at this point to have a finished product than it is to have a better idea.

Our plan is to produce a wall with multiple apertures that allow light to pass through in varying amounts in order to optimize the amount of light on one side of the wall. In theory, the wall would be external, probably south-facing. For the purposes of the gallery piece, we have to rely on a large lamp to produce the necessary light. The wall will adjust to light fluctuations externally over time, as well as to internal commands to increase and decrease light.

The apertures open and close by an array of servos commanded at their core by an Arduino Mega. The servos will require significantly more power than can be provided by one Mega, so there will be an external power source as well. It would be possible to power the entire thing with an array of solar panels in an outdoor environment, but in the gallery we will have to use grid-based power. Light detection will be handled by a color detector and an array of LDRs.

Overall, I feel that the project fits the requirements well for being a heliotropic smart surface.

Methodical Madness Returns

So, I just had a week-long hiatus of pure frustration with this class and school in general. The constant modification of the final project has taken its toll on me, as well as several extracurricular influences, and my motivation for the class that has been there all semester is basically gone. There is hope, however, in the latest iteration of our final project idea.

The current direction we are taking for the final project, which is likely the final direction, is having a variable shading system, which will allow a constant amount of light in from the sun. The design will operate by guessing positions based on intensity readings until it is correct, and then possibly (ideally) recording the proper positions for future use. The algorithm for this is extremely complex, and inspired by the concept of the SMS adaptive learning in the Hot Strip Mill at ArcelorMittal Riverdale, where I interned for the past two summers.

I feel that this plays into my interests well, and will make for a great design project. More detail will be given at some point as things actually start moving along.

Methodical Madness Shades People

So, we've finalized that we are going to build a modular Solar Umbrella, as explained here, but with a few different properties.

Instead of being used for personal shading, the umbrellas will lattice to form a shaded walkway by day, and lit walkways at night without shading. Multiple umbrellas would be linked to each other by some sort of radio/bluetooth. The links would be utilized to light up specific paths at night with different lights in large parks, where someone can be at a stand, interact with a screen to define where she wants to go, and then follow the lit path to get there. This would not only create a safe environment, but be useful to people who do not have maps at night. It could also be migrated to a more suburban environment and sidewalk routes. This interaction creates the 'surface', as multiple umbrellas would interact to form a map.

Construction of the umbrellas would be modular, so that there could be in-between umbrellas without the more expensive touch-screen interface, that would still be of the same construction. There are other interesting ramifications to the modular assembly we are developing, but that will not be discussed until later on.

We will try to produce concept art with our white paper tonight.

In other news, Neil is back, no longer quarantined with the sickness.

Methodical Madness Considers New Constraints

So, Karl put out an e-mail this morning re-defining the constraints for the final project, less than a day after I feel that I constrained the final project quite well. We are now building a robust solar tracker, contrary to the crappy less-than-robust solar trackers we built previously. However, I do still feel that there are two options for a basis for the final project. This is expanding an opinion from my previous post.

Option A: The Solar Tracker

Something that moves or grows to follow the intensity/path of the sun. Essentially, something that maximizes its own efficiency. I feel that the organic growth is intriguing, but difficult, considering the time constraint.

Option B: The Solar Binary

Something that activates or deactivates in the presence of sunlight. Is not overtly affected by intensity of sunlight, only by the fact that there is sunlight.

This does take the majority of the robotic mobility options off the table, at least in theory. I feel like the new constraint will probably bring the project down to earth pretty quickly. Should not be much trouble generating a project at my group's meeting today. I already have a pretty neat idea that meets all of my requirements:

Solar Umbrella

Not an umbrella in the sense that it protects from rain, but instead in the sense that it protects from sunlight - pillars that could be located in a park, the tops of which would expand out into a solar array that would both generate energy for surrounding park lights and create a sort of mechanical tree which people could sit under for shade. Would close up when there is a lack of sunlight, and the very top of the pillar would be a protective cover that would protect the panels from harm due to inclement weather. The pillar itself would house a collection of batteries to store energy, which would be drawn from by nearby lights at night, and also would have power plugs if people wanted to sit under them with laptops, charge their cell phones, etc. It's kind of been done on a smaller scale, but not in a heliotropic and smart way, just in that it is a solar surface.

Methodical Madness Goes Back to the Drawing Board

So, as far as I was concerned, our team had developed an excellent project Wednesday night, which covered all of the bases for the project requirements very well, which involved everyone equally, and which was very multi-disciplinary. As of our meeting Thursday night, we are somehow back at square one, with no ideas. Don't ask me how the whole thing derailed, it wasn't me. I still like the stadium project, though that may change in my quest for a design.

Here follows my consideration of what I want out of the final project.

I discussed in an earlier post the definition of a Heliotropic Smart Surface, and in another the definition of Sustainability. Each treatise was originally a part of this post, but I cut them out due to them being topics of their own, and this post was about to be ridiculously long and almost unreadable. So, just read those first. They give a good basis for what I am about to say.

There are two avenues we could go down. We can develop a surface, or we can develop a network of points that become a surface when you map them in relation to each other. Essentially, they are the same idea, only differentiated by scale. In the point-networking, we do have to worry about communicating with a centralized dispatch of sorts, or with each other. Otherwise, it is not a surface, it is just a collection of mutually exclusive points.

I'm just going to outline a couple of fairly neat ideas that I have. For the record, the stadium idea no longer qualifies - it is not heliotropic by definition. However, if it utilized shade to activate a mechanism, that would qualify as heliotropic, so possibly...

Heated Stadium Bleachers

Solar powered stadium seating - bleachers with some sort of solar panel inside of them, that also have a heating element. When shadowed at low temperatures (below 32F), bleachers will heat up to a temperature above freezing, in order to melt any snow off of them. Would also have touch sensors set to activate at a different temperature (say, 45F), so that when they feel a large amount of pressure, they heat up further to warm anyone sitting on them. Meets the requirements of being heliotropic, smart, and a surface. May or may not be sustainable, depending on what is done with the energy otherwise.

Self-Cleaning Skyscraper Windows

Windows that utilize a light-intensity detector on the outside and inside to determine a light gradient. They would know when the blinds are closed so that they don't activate unnecessarily, but when the blinds are open and the gradient is too large, they would tag the window for cleaning. Triple sensor could be used to determine whether or not the inside or outside of the window needs to be cleaned. A cleaning crew or solar-powered gecko-foot robot could then utilize this data to go up the side of the building to clean the window. Meets the requirements of being heliotropic, smart, and a surface, while also being sustainable. Bonus that this meets the surface and network of points requirements.

Solar Cockroach

Essentially, small robots that are good at staying out of sight. Will wander areas that are dark, but retreat at the first signs of light. An army of them could be utilized to monitor situations in an urban environment and report back data, such as staying out of sight and detecting people carrying weapons or something of the sort. Could possibly be used as street-cleaning robots, mapping out how much litter they pick up in an area and trending it to determine what areas need additional public trash cans, recycling bins, etc. Would only activate at night, and would avoid headlights. Heliotropic, smart, the group mind would be a surface, and it would be sustainable.

Methodical Madness has a Plan

Our group formulated a grand scheme for our final project.

The Grand Scheme: Utilizing permanent partial-use outdoor seating in both passive (photovoltaic) and active (piezoelectric) ways to collect energy. The project breaks into three steps, which will be designed one at a time.

The Basic Bleacher

A modular, permanent seating system, designed with solar and piezoelectric capabilities.

Solar would be year-round.

Surface material selection for collecting and retaining heat.

Photovoltaic collection for electrical energy production.

Solar collection would go directly to the facility grid.

Piezoelectric materials would pick up both sound and motion.

Power various activated interactions.

May contain things such as heating elements, malleable surface, powered by piezoelectrics.

Aisle in front of bleacher would also be piezoelectric.

The Activated Interactions

Analog: Heating elements, malleable surface, lighting changes, etc.

Digital: Data collection, digital feedback (scoreboard stats), etc.

The Grand Concept

A full visualization of a revolutionary multi-use outdoor open-air stadium.

Designed around the concept of being powered by itself.

Would likely be a re-design of Michigan Stadium, since we do go to Michigan.

From here, we will be communicating with the Michigan Athletic Department as well as athletic departments at a few other schools to gain energy usage and spectator information.

Methodical Madness is Fueled by Happiness

We were assigned our final project groups on Friday. My final team is myself and:

• Westley Burger, Architecture
• Pete Hall, Art and Design
• Brieana MacDonald, Architecture
• Taylor McKenzie-Veal, Art and Design
• Neil Poulin, Engineering

I have never worked with Brieana, but I have worked with everyone else in the group. Pete in Week 2; Neil in Week 3; Westley and Taylor in Week 4. All have contributed well to the projects, and I'm sure that Brieana is an equally strong contributor.

During the class period on Friday, our objective was to formulate initial ideas. Nothing concrete, but we came up with a list.

First, the core to the project is that it must be a Heliotropic Smart Surface. We started with traits that we would like it to have. The first two recommendations were Interactivity and Personality - something that is memorable, with a human interaction. I proposed a Smart Surface designed to harness the heat in Asphalt. We kind of moved away from that idea, saying that we should create something that is possibly modified or developed by Observation. Neil stated that he wanted to work with Novel Materials, something edgy and new that hasn't really been worked with before. I then stated that we want to talk about how Recyclability is important, and the idea that things should be designed for recycling, not designed for manufacturing. We discussed that whatever we design should be Modular, both in Scale and Function. The Local Scale is important, and we need to focus on a local site in order for it to be a meaningful project, something that we can actually work with, IF we are going to be site based. We touched on the idea of using Human Energy alongside Solar Energy, and then talked about the incident in Sweden where they are using Rabbit Energy, though not in quite so humane of a way. The concept should be Noble, and we discussed the possibility of it being Mobile. Bunnies and Sunshine, the new world, Fueled by Happiness. Somehow, we made a segue from there to discussing local locations, and came up with the idea of developing The Big House as a Smart Surface.

The principal idea using The Big House is developing a new bleacher system that is photovoltaic and piezoelectric, and automatically oriented with the sun. The bleachers could be utilized in any outdoor venue anywhere in the world, and developed with recyclable materials such as steel. The project idea comes at a good time, as the bleachers are going to be replaced in the next few years when they re-do the aisles. I am unsure if we will use this as our final idea, but it is definitely my favorite at this point. We are meeting this week to hand in a proposal Friday.

Methodical Madness Builds a Guillotine

The idea behind our group's heliotropic surface is that it is exactly as described - a surface. There is no re-orientation mechanism, nothing of the sort, only a reaction to the presence or lack of presence of the sun (or light in general).

The inspiration behind our design is a Hoberman Sphere, a complex-looking mechanical sphere that utilizes very simple parts working together. We took the sphere, re-represented the mechanism in 2-D, and came up with this. So far, it has only been constructed in chipboard, but it looks pretty neat. The issue we have been having is a materials one - chipboard is not strong enough for our purposes, so we are replicating the circle in acrylic and hoping that it can hold itself in one piece without breaking. The idea is to take two of these circles, join them together (easier said than done), and have a mechanism that opens and closes them in an alternating fashion based on whether or not there is [sun]light shining on the surface. The idea is to create a binary system that can have two different uses in less space than would be required by always-open circles.

The difficulty behind this project hasn't been designing the mechanism - that was done on day one - but instead has been finding a purpose for the mechanism. There are so many options that we have thought of, but we cannot decide which to produce. The best part about the mechanism is that it is modular and scalable - we could have an essentially infinite chain, and it could be as large or small as we can produce and assemble it. The only limits are the capabilities of the chosen material. We are using 3/16" acrylic (at last check - we may have changed it, I am not in charge of buying the acrylic), and producing a circle that is about 18" in diameter when expanded, and maybe 6" in diameter when contracted. We are using spandex with 4-way flexibility as a covering for the acrylic. It will look sweet, I promise.

My brilliant idea, which was immediately dismissed by the group, was to make a guillotine that shoots fireworks out of the other circle. It's brilliant! Extremely efficient, lots of spectacle, chopping of heads... the French would be proud. I was going to make a paint drawing, but don't quite have the necessary paint skills (or Paint... I'm on a Mac). Needless to say it includes blades and fireworks. What more do you need, in all honesty? Real ideas include a skylight / spray system for a greenhouse, a skylight / ceiling light alternation, solar collection / solar powered usage, and several others that we are less likely to produce.

Our group has been working well together. We have kind of developed a production chain for which people are in class / not in class, so the acrylic is being cut by Marc, assembled by Josiah, geared by Taylor, and then we are re-assembling the group to work on it together after that point. I feel like, the way our project is designed, the Engineers have less to do this week than in previous weeks - our design really is lacking complexity. I work mostly with the coding, which is generally a few hours per project at most. I am going to try to put together some sort of graphic interface in Processing that shows different things based on what the physical position of the system is, making everything more shiny.