Author: Diana Xu

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Locomotion

Inspirations:

We were inspired by the movement of jellyfish in the beginning. So we decided to create a jellyfish robot floating in the air by using helium balloons. 

However, we couldn’t get helium. So we decided to use another structure:

https://www.nature.com/news/robot-jellyfish-takes-to-the-air-1.14528

We build the core structure and the wings:

It turned out to be too heavy to fly. So we change to another animal: mudskipper

inspiration video:

We have three iterations in total. The first one was made with normal cardboard. During the testing, we found that cardboard is too soft to support the rotation of the leg. Also, the connection between the body and leg is not straight enough to move.  For our second version, we replaced the cardboard to thicker and stronger ones. However, once we cut them into small pieces, they began to bend again. So we decided to replace these connection pieces with wood. We used laser cut to cut these pieces and replace them. The third version could move properly with hand control, but the traction between the rubber band and the wheel is not strong enough. We experimented with different rubber bands and decided to use multiple rubber bands for the traction.

  

final documentation video:

Reflection:

It’s a good experiment with locomotion. I realized it’s always important to do research before starting to make things. For our jellyfish idea, we didn’t realize the material difficulties. Due to the lack of idea material, we gave up this idea. When we changed to Mudskipper, the whole structure is easier to understand and make.

For future improvement, I want to replace the motor to higher speed and replaced to a smaller battery, so this robot can really jump like a frog.

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NOC week 10

link: https://editor.p5js.org/DianaXu/sketches/fy9FZ6GgR

This week I played with different shapes and force. I added curves to the shape. And I also added a spinning force to the shapes. Then I used the mouse to control the movements of these flowers.

Without mouse click:

Mouse click

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NOC Week 9

link:https://editor.p5js.org/DianaXu/sketches/AZ8BCj8pn

Inspired by spring movement, I created a rising jellyfish. I changed the force between two balls, replaced the ball with sine waves, and added multiple legs.

I gave a force to the smaller balls to make them rise. And I also limited the force by giving an original distance to the springs and decreasing the value of k. Once I replaced the ball with sine waves, I added restrains on sine waves to make them look like legs. And in order to mimic the movement of a jellyfish, I restained the random value for the legs.

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NOC Midterm

Description:

My NOC midterm is part of the visual of my final project, which will be a graphics-human interactive dance performance. In the performance, the audience will sit in front of defined space and watch a human dancer dancing with graphics projected on the back wall, ground and a white human-height object on the stage. The projected graphics will move and change between human shape and non-human shape according to the movements of the human dancer.

Development:

Version 1: A pre-recorded dance movement stored in a JSON file 

Version 2:  Connect joints together

Version 3: Replace the line with sine waves, noise waves, and polygons.

Version 4: Add some color and debug mode

Improvement in the future:

    • Make the movement more smoothly
    • Set the color palette
    • Make it able to change between human shape and non-human shapes.
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Midterm documentation

Sand Pattern with Pufferfish

Video documentation:

Inspirations:

check here for our inspirations.

Development:

    • Hardware:

Version 1:  We used normal motors with flat magnets attached to the robot. The normal motors are easy to control, but they can’t draw perfect curves. So we gave up these motors.

Version 2: We used steppers, which have higher accuracy. However, they moved really slowly. And the force between flat magnets and the magnet ball is too strong, so the magnet ball can’t draw shapes smoothly. 

Version 3: We replaced the flat magnets to magnet ball. With a smaller attraction area, the force is good for magnet ball to move smoothly.

    • Sand:

We got 10kg sand in the beginning, but we found that thick sands will weaken the magnet force. We only used very thin sands in the end.

    • Code:

We did a lot of calculations about angles and length, but the result of the calculation was so different from the fact. So we gave up the calculation and experimented with random numbers.

    • Pattern:

We created the outline and spiral separately and combined them in the end. After the combination, the path of the car got messed up. We fixed the data to make sure it can go back to the beginning position.