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• Each team is required to design and create a functional prototype of an interactive mechanical garden, which is a small installation fits within a volume with a base of 50cm x 50cm and with reasonable height. The installation should have at least one one "plant" and one "animal" (e.g. insect, small bird, ...) which can move through electromechanical control and interacts with one or more than one users, in a fun and engaging way. Note that the whole installation should be stable, and should stay inside the volume as mentioned previously when interacting with user(s) and/or surrounding environment (that is, it is not expected to move around physically, and no part of it should extend outside the mentioned volume). This can be considered under the theme "Spatial Interaction" in Hornecker, E., Buur, J. (2006) Getting a Grip on Tangible Interaction : A Framework on Physical Space and Social Interaction.
• The interactive mechanical garden is expected to capture actions from user(s) and/or changes in surrounding environment (through appropriate sensors), and responds to user(s) through combinations of at least three modalities as follows:
  • visual (e.g. light, display, ...)
  • auditory (e.g. sound, music, ...)
  • kinetic (e.g. movement of the "plant" or "animal")
• Mechanical movement of elements in this interactive mechanical garden should be driven by motors (presumable servo motors but can also be geared motor) through appropriate mechanisms (e.g. gears, linkages)
• The functional prototype should be an "open prototype" (Sec 47.2.3 in Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Mackay, W. (2012) Prototyping Tools and Techniques), meaning that
  • it behaves like a real system, but with some limitations
  • it covers part of the final system, and demonstrates key behaviors and functionalities of your final system
  • it may have limited error handling or reduced performance relative to the final system
• Structural and mechanical parts should be digitally fabricated (e.g. through laser cutting and/or 3D printing) so that digital files are available for possible reproduction of those parts, and these parts should NOT be glued together so that the functional prototype can be easily serviced when internal parts are broken. 

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• All technical solutions (including libraries, applications and online services) must be either in open source or free (including allowing for free use with limited capabilities). Your technical solution SHOULD NOT be an existing commercial turn-key solution which has no source code available or with no open APIs
• Please confirm with me if you have any doubt

Schedule

References:

• Hornecker, E., Buur, J. (2006) Getting a Grip on Tangible Interaction : A Framework on Physical Space and Social Interaction.
• Beaudouin-Lafon, M., Mackay, W. (2012) Prototyping Tools and Techniques