The DRXYA robot is calibrated to change its colour and position based on the actions of a user scanned with a Kinect sensor. The on-screen Processing visualisation relays the information (a series of commands and coordinates) via serial communication to the Arduino, which in turn activates the both the lighting sequence of the addressable neopixel LED strips and the movement of the stepper motors in X and Y directions. With the presence of a user within 1.5m from the facade, the colour of the central ring changes from a rainbow display to blue. When the user’s hand is raised, the colour of the inner ring changes to an animated purple sequence. During this phase, the user is able to control the position of the ring in X and Y through the translation of the Processing sketch’s Cartesian coordinates to that of the built facade. This vertical CNC device has many implication responsive facades, interior partion light systems, 3D mapping, and visual communications.

Video! —> https://vimeo.com/90327378

and more to follow soon…….

The concept was to play with the noise that the cities produce and reproduce the movement of the sound wave on the bulding facade.
The idea is to make the building dance according to the  “music” played by the city  focucing in the interaction between people, sound and visual.

Video: http://vimeo.com/90137267

The Sound Wave is as interactive facade that generate movement from sound.

Shape of the components

To recreate the wave shape for the Sound wave we tested a few shapes and materials weight and size. And different types of mechanism for the movement with elastics and rubber.

Facade Prototypes

The Sound Wave is made by 11 rows of lasser cut wood pieces that are built with a mechanism that allow us to move each row as a wave. The mechanism is activated by the used of solenoids, they are placed to push the pieces in specific points to set the movement, the sound input is measure by a sound sensor that is connected to the arduino that calculates a media, with a specific amount of decibels of sound, set in the code, triggers the solenoids to create the movement. These solenoids worked with a delay that let us to recreate a wave shape.

Video:  http://vimeo.com/90137267

The PhytoSense façade system is an interactive green facade that uses swept frequency capacitive sensing to play with light depending on touch.  An array of plants selected by their texture lets the user interact and be in “touch” with them by fading light to the plants being touched. But how does it work? How can the plant “feel” when it is being touched? As always, our friend Arduino gives us a hand.

PhytoSense – Vimeo

Swept Frequency Capacitive Touch Sensor

The circuit senses changes in voltage and capacitance from current being run through a swept frequency capacitive sensor (SFCS) attached to a conductor (copper plate) buried in a dielectric (planter and plant). With the circuit on this state, current runs freely through it until it finds ground and nothing is sensed. Yet, when a second conductor (human hand) approaches or touches the plant, a capacitor is made between the copper plate and the hand, with the plant acting as its dielectric inert material. Introducing the capacitor to the AC circuit changes the frequency of the voltage and current after it goes through the capacitor, a change in frequency that is measured by the SFCS.

Touch Dependent Capacitance Variation

The SFCS can also measure the change in capacitance of the system. This change is created by the way the plant is touched. The main variables that change it are the distance from the hand to the copper plate and the amount of area touching the plant (second conductive area). A decrease in the distance of the conductors and an increase in the area change the potential difference between the conductors. This increases the electrical field in between them, distorting the frequency further. The capacitor is also affected by the “non-conductive” capacity of the dielectric, this makes some plants perform better or worse depending on factors such as the moisture content of the soil the amount of tissue on the plant membrane, and the conductivity of the user.

Both the change in frequency and the increase of capacitance sensed by the SFCS allows for the plant to “feel” how it is being touched and react in a certain way depending on it. This value (in arbitrary units) is the one which controls how and where the light is being directed.

Experimentation and Calibration

The system is delicate in terms of the sensed value changing due to several factors as frequency noise, voltage applied, and resistance among others. Several tests using different sensor configurations where conducted before getting a stable reading. The first tests conducted used a simple system with a 100 KOhm resistor and various fruits. The fruitDuino experimentation was done on plants but yielded very different values from species to species. Further testing and switching to a new SFCS circuit gave more stable and reliable results, allowing us to implement the technology into a facade system. The SFCS was connected to a single plant in one experiment as well several plants together until the final version was created. The SFCS sensor works by measuring the change in value in capacitance. Electrical flow runs through the SFCS sensor to the plant measuring the change in capacitance. The circuit is then plugged to digital and analog pins on the Arduino which then controls the addressable LEDs on the facade.  The pallet is divided into four quadrants because the Arduino Mega supports four-16 bit timers, ideal for controlling the addressable LEDs.

Building and Addressing

Built on a reused pallet, PhytoSense is comprised of 12 planters fastened to the back of the pallet, allowing plants to grow through the exposed gaps. A copper plate lines the inside of each planter and is attached to an SFCS. Four SFCS sensors control the four quarters of the pallet independently. Depending on which quadrant is touched, addressable LEDs gradually fade from green to red. The absence of touch returns the LEDs to their previous color. The whole prototype is controlled by one 16-bit Arduino Mega, which reads the sensor values in real time.

PhytoSense uses a variety of local plants and their ability to measure capacitance differs depending on various factors, such as leaf length, water retention, and soil moisture. The many and different values led us to simplify the interaction.

Applications

This facade system has great potential when taken to a larger scale. The use of addressable LED strips makes it a potential screen facade. This would allow the display of any image with a pixel based format throughout the facade. As for the plants, several information about the species or their watering needs could be identified by touching the desired plant. Furthermore, a world map could point out the touched plant’s origin and growing locations.

References

- King Walrus, SweepingCapSense – GithubInc. ; https://github.com/KingWalrus/SweepingCapSense/blob/master/SweepingCap.h

- “Arduino do the Touché Dance”, DLZ Evil Genius Liar Blog; http://dzlsevilgeniuslair.blogspot.it/2012/05/arduino-do-touche-dance.html

- “Touche for Arduino; Advanced Touch Sensing”, Madshobye, Instructables; http://www.instructables.com/id/Touche-for-Arduino-Advanced-touch-sensing/

- “ Touché: Enhancing Touch Interaction on Humans, Screens, Liquids, and Everyday Objects”, Munehiko Sato, Ivan Poupyrev, Chris Harrison, Disney Research; http://www.disneyresearch.com/wp-content/uploads/touchechi2012.pdf

- “Cultivating Frequencies 1.0″, Colin Honigman; http://vimeo.com/85204158

The Facade has being concieved as a rigid surface with openings. Every period in history is represented by different typologies/configurations that can be recognised and categorised. Nowadays we live in an interactive world our buildings cannot stay rigid, they should be responsive to different environments.

Applying the same strategy to our facade we can achieve responsiveness. The facade reads the inputs and create “gestures” that perform a function. So the facade can be triggered by the amount of light, the human proximity, the need for ventilation or the sound in its surroundings, and just as a nervous system works, transform those stimules in motion functio

Concept
Building gestures
Facade “gestures” allow buildings to react to the stimulus of the environment.

The purpose of this exercise was to control a servo motor with a digitalWrite input. We  created a led sequence in one arduino and a light sensor connected to the servo in an another arduino board. The amount of  light that the sensor detects triggers the speed and the rotation of the servo. Using two different arduino boards helped us to experiment the distance between the light sensor and the leds which allowed us to have a wider range of servo outputs.

video

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Analog vs Digital

int led9 = 9;
int led8 = 8;
int led7 = 7;
int led6 = 6;
int led5 = 5;
int led4 = 4;
int led3 = 3;
int led2 = 2;

int brightness = 0; // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5; // how many points to fade the LED by

// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
// declare pin 9 to be an output:
pinMode(led9, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led8, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led7, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led6, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led5, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led4, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led3, OUTPUT);
pinMode(led2, OUTPUT);

}

// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
// set the brightness of pin 9:
analogWrite(led9, brightness);
analogWrite(led8, brightness);
analogWrite(led7, brightness);
analogWrite(led6, brightness);
analogWrite(led5, brightness);
analogWrite(led4, brightness);
analogWrite(led3, brightness);
analogWrite(led2, brightness);

// change the brightness for next time through the loop:
brightness = brightness + fadeAmount;

// reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
if (brightness == 0 || brightness == 255) {
fadeAmount = -fadeAmount ;
}
// wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
delay(30);
}

Codebender is an on-line Arduino IDE, you can think of it as Google Drive for Arduino Code. Visit Codebende.cc and create an account.

Fritzing is a tool for drawing and sharing your electronics schematics. Visit Fritzing.org and download the software. You can export your designs as PNG to share it in the blog. You can also Sign up at Fritzing.org in order to publish your design at the Fritzing community.

For projects more complex projects we encourage you to check Github. Git is a professional way for documenting and sharing your projects on-line. You can check FablabBcn Github or Google Github. You can create for free an accout and use the Mac or