T)rolling machine

Design team: Christos Kourtidis, Ilia Bebi, Magdalini Pertoleka, Pauline Goumenaki, Thanasis Vakasis Location: Δe_Λab, website: thelab.design July and November 2018

During the Interaction Design workshop, organised by The Lab Architecture, we inspired, and then designed and constructed the (T)rolling machine. It is an interactive device, which functions thanks to an Arduino board that coordinates a number of sensors. The (T)rolling machine consists of two basic parts, the exoskeleton and the heart. The first is made by 30 wooden beams which are connected by 3D printed PETG connection nodes. The heart has spherical shape and it is made from PETG as well. It contains all the electronics and microcontrollers, and it is suspended in tension with cables from exoskeleton’s nodes. Those cables are transferring to the heart the information gathered from the environment, meaning the touch and movement of people that interact with it. As a result, the machine transmits light and sound signals, in correspondence with people’s interaction, and according to its programming.

Yes, I am a machine, I obey to orders and rules. I am programmed to act unexpectedly, however, premeditated. You can not understand me, I am confusing you.

(T)rolling machine is placed in Nea Smyrni square in order to interact with people. Its reactions are defined by three stages: IDLE, TOUCH, MOVEMENT.

IDLE Firstly, at the beginning of this stage, the machine is sleeping (I1) and the heart light’s blue periodically. After a short time period, it wakes up (I2) and trying to attract attention by lighting bright white light from the heart and exoskeleton’s LED strips, while Morse code sound can be heard from the buzzer. Unless someone touch it, it goes in sleeping mode and then in awake mode, repeatedly.

TOUCH Secondly, if a person touch the exoskeleton, more precisely an aluminium strip, (t)rolling machine’s mode stage changes. For the first 5 touches it reacts awkwardly (T1) by lighting the heart from blue to white repeatedly. Also, if there is no human touch for 20 seconds, the machine returns to the I1 mode. In case of more than 5 touches in less than 20”, it moves on to the happiness mode (T2). Now, heart lights from blue to magenta and buzzer sounds “happy” in Morse code. Again, if no one touch it for 20”, it returns to the previous mode (T1). However, when repetitive touches count more than 10, machine’s mode turns crazy, so magenta lights from the heart repeatedly, while buzzer transmits loudly and LED strips light randomly. Finally, in case counter reach 20 touches, the break down mode is activated, where the machine stops functioning for a short time period and counter goes zero.

MOVEMENT When the machine is rotated or moved by a person, it reacts unexpectedly. More specifically, a mode from the above is selected randomly in order to function.

TECHNICAL DESCRIPTION

Breadboard 1: Capacitive sensor is created by several passive components. Pin A0 of Arduino board is parallel connected to the tantalum capacitor C1 of 0.1 nF capacitance, the resistance R1 (1 MΩ), and the rectified diode D1 (1N4001 type). Capacitor C1 and resistance R1 are grounded. Tantalum capacitor C2 (10 nF) is connected to the diode D1 and the air-core inductor L. Also, capacitor C2 is connected with the wire which is soldered to the aluminium strips. Then, inductor L is parallel connected to two resistances, R2 (3.3 Ω) and R3 (10 KΩ). Finally, R2 is grounded and R3 connected to pin 9 of Arduino board.

Breadboard 2: Gyroscope GY, buzzer J and four transistors Q1, Q2, Q3, Q4. Gyroscope’s pins VCC and GND are wired to the power supply and the ground respectively, while pins SCL and SDA are connected to the equivalent of Arduino board (I2C protocol). The buzzer J is connected to the ground and to arduino’s pin 11(PWM). The four transistors are used in order to control LED strips. Each transistor has three endpoints, the one links to the ground, the middle one to the ground of a LED strip, and the last one to an Arduino pin. More specifically, three transistors correspond to the RGB LED strip, one for each colour, and the fourth to the white light LED strip. 29