Designing Associativity Assignment 2
Data Machine
MAA 2010-2011,IAAC Amay Gurkar, Saiqa Iqbal
The Data Machine _ For the data machine, we wanted to make a moving object which will react with the Real Time environmental data. _ The factor of fabricating the object also gave us the opportunity to exercise the techniques of some machinic movement. _ We decided to study the model of ‘Strandbeest’ by Theo Jansen. Particularly we studied the Leg System of his ‘animal’ and tried to capture the mechanism by using grasshopper. _ our data machine is actually a moving robot which will move with the intensity of light. An arduino with a light sensor will be connected to a rotating motor causing the movement of the legs
“Not pollen or seeds but plastic yellow tubes are used as the basic material of this new nature. I make skeletons that are able to walk on the wind, so they don’t have to eat. Over time, these skeletons have become increasingly better at surviving the elements such as storm and water and eventually I want to put these animals out in herds on the beaches, so they will live their own lives.� Theo Jansen
http://www.strandbeest.com/beests_leg.php
The Leg System
The original numbers used by Theo Jansen a = 38, b = 41.5, c = 39.3, d = 40.1, e = 55.8, f = 39.4, g = 36.7, h = 65.7, i = 49, j = 50, k = 61.9, l=7.8, m=15 .
http://www.strandbeest.com/beests_leg.php
_ our data machine is actually a moving robot which will move with the intensity of light. An arduino with a light sensor will be connected to a rotating motor causing the movement of the legs
Study sketch
Mechanism of the leg movement _According to the mechanism created be Theo Jansen, the machine rotates on one axis similar to the rotation of the wheels. The rotation of this axis actually tries to simulate the walk done by humans.
_the mechanism works around two circle and the points and intersections generated between them. http://www.mekanizmalar.com/theo_jansen.html
Simulation_ Grasshopper _We start with identifying the fixed point, which help us to develope the positioning rotation axis as well as the other 3 arms which rotate about this centre. _Around this rotational axis we introduce a polar point, which becomes the point of control for the mechanism. This point is rotated with the VB script giving thecreature a heartbeat. _Polar Point; source for all the other points required for the mechanism. _Circle CNR; around the fixed point (source point) _Circle from the polar point; he intersection between these two curves give us the first two arms of the animal. There are two intersections found which is split using the list item into individual points.
_Now these points are connected using the line component. The next arm of the animal is constructed by generating two vectors between the required points using the 2point vector, a vectorZ and the cross product between them, which is fed into a Line SDL direction input. These two lines (arms) are always parallel to each other. The same method is used to calculate for the rest of the arms. _This gives us one leg of the animal which is then replicated to generate the other leg of the Theo Jansen animal.
In order to make this animal walk the other leg has to move in the other direction. this is done by simply replicating all the above steps, and only translating the Pi parameter fed into the polar point which controls the motion into negative Pi.
_In order to do this the axel between the legs on each side needs to be shifted. with another rotational wheel in the middle of the axel. this would then be connected with a gear to the motor which would relate the real time data sourced by an arduino sensor.
Study model