Prompt:
Post to your blog the actuator and all the different mechanisms you created. Document the movements and reflect on your learning experience. What kind of motor would you use to make your next project move?
Work on your project 2:
Create an interactive and kinetic prototype that will be a foundation for your final project. This prototype could augment the human body by playing with the possibilities of hiding and exposing or changing and transforming. In this project you will choose between pneumatic actuators or motors, and the movement should be controlled according to data coming from a sensor
Generally speaking, the development of our wearable device is based on the exoskeleton structure. The exoskeleton is a brilliant morphology in nature, and it is mostly seen in insects whose hard structure is outside to protect the inner soft tissues, which is the exact opposite of human beings. Meanwhile, insects are said to be one of the oldest species living on Earth, and their symmetrical body compositions somewhat bring out an illusion as if they are alien creatures or robots, and similar designs appear a lot in science fiction, such as Dune. Here, an interesting topic regarding the relationship between the future and the past is put on the table, and if people’s imagination and blueprint of their futuristic image will be atavistic. We noticed the evolutionary process of the tails in the human race.
Here, an interesting topic regarding the relationship between the future and the past is put on the table, and if people’s imagination and blueprint of their futuristic image will be atavistic? We noticed the evolutionary process of the tails in the human race. Over a period of about 500 million years, our ancestors grew tails. As fish, they used their tails for swimming in the Cambrian oceans. Much later, when they evolved into primates, their tails helped them keep their balance as they ran from branch to branch in the Eocene jungle. But then, about 25 million years ago, the tails disappeared. Nevertheless, the movie Avatar gave people a possibility that in 2154, tails will once again become an important tool/medium for communication and connection. In terms of functionality, tails can keep balance, be used for social signaling, help escape from predators, and indicate animals’ emotional states.
How Humans Lost Their Tails (Published 2021)
Furthermore, we come up with the prototype for our project 2. The piece has a protection operation system, and it will (partially) wrap the users bodies up to provide a sense of security. And the movement mimic the form of mimosa’s response to touch because 1) the primitive and natural system is what we are looking for. 2) the symmetrical shape of mimosa corresponds with our main idea of creating this piece. Also, the tail is a main part of this wearable device, and its movement will reveal and expose emotions in interpersonal interactions. We will use ultrasonic for now as the sensor.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nPf3FbR6eQE
Generally speaking, we will combine the elements of exoskeleton and tail to create a piece that extract mechanism from nature and history to discuss a possibility that reveals how humans reveal information (emotions, signals, communication) and protect themselves in the future.
Below are some of our references.
Bio — Anouk Wipprecht FashionTech
We also got a moodboard and some sketches (under development) to better explain our idea.
keywords: exoskeleton, tail, futuristic, atavistic, protection, social signaling, ultrasonic.
Last class, we made the actuator. Johnny built the circuit of the DC motor, and Wendy and Hazel used the actuator and COATED copper core wire to build the coil and soldered it to the wires, and connected them to the circuit. The actuator kit worked well and successfully. During the circuit build procedure, we checked the direction of the H bridge multiple times to ensure it won’t burn the Arduino or the breadboard. And it’s quite successful. But later when we made the prototype of Project 2, in order to make the circuit more stable, Wendy changed the long wires into short hard wires, but she accidentally connected the H bridge in an opposite direction and our first Arduino was burnt.
Prototype #1
Each bone of the tail structure is too large and spaced too far apart, resulting in it can not bend properly.
Prototype #2
Using rubber straws as the material for the new bearing bones and reducing the size of each bone and the distance between them, but the circular structure is not conducive to focusing the force of pulling on the rope in the same direction, so the tail bends in strange directions.
Prototype #4
We use a soldering gun to melt the PLA material and fix the insert nut on the printed model to hold the bearing bone.
Prototype #6
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1hhy3EvaI8mgwkHKIaNA52oO-8wiaS7to/view?usp=sharing
By laser cutting the acrylic, we have a more solid structure realizing this movement direction transformation.
Prototype #1.5
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1Ycwnz7A7VL0wa0HLT_R3aers9wmt7NIK/view?usp=sharing
So we tune the bone size and the gap distance. But still, the rigidity of the bearing bone determines its unideal bending effect in other directions.
Prototype #3
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1J8oSYw_4zkkcG3MZ0QO5i7Gs5pIPMkBg/view?usp=sharing
So we used a square bone structure and added a wire rope in the bearing bone part to make it more solid. At this time, by pulling the rope in four directions, we can find the tail bending in the corresponding direction
Prototype #5
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1a8PQ5jd5LihMYgBHSziK52EdUY-eJWna/view?usp=sharing
This is a rough prototype demonstrating our idea of transforming the rotational motion into a vertical direction movement.
Stepper Motor
According to the diagram, we connect the stepper motor to the mechanic structure and use it to drive vertical movement.
3D Printed Components
