Title: Interactive Mechanical Garden

Design and Technical Requirements:

• 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 "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 not easy to topple or fall, and should stay inside the volume as mentioned previously when interacting with user(s) and/or surrounding environment. Hence, 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 either digitally fabricated or commercial off-the shelf (COTS) ones. For parts which can be digitally fabricated (e.g. through laser cutting or 3D printing), digital files should be provided for possible reproduction of those parts. For COTS parts, they should be accessible through online stores by general public so that they can be purchased. These parts should NOT be glued together so that the functional prototype can be easily serviced when internal parts are broken. 

Team size

• at most 4 students

Expected outcomes:

• Identify beneficiaries of your design and associated values, and describe how your design can achieve those requirements mentioned above
• Identify sensors and actuators and necessary physical structures for realizing your design solution. Identify mechanisms to be used to realize corresponding mechanical movements of elements in your design. You should identify similar/related products and/or academic references to support your choices.
• Identify essential processing logic (which involves data from sensors and to actuators) for realizing your design solution
• Identify communication protocols between various “connected devices”
• Conduct technical feasibility study and refine your design solution accordingly
• Create a functional prototype demonstrating key features of your design solution and technical feasibilities

Technical requirements (IoT)

• IoT device
  • Arduino-based uC, e.g. ESP32C3
  • Possible to use other uC (e.g. Raspbery Pi), but you will have to work out your own technical solution
  • Communicate wirelessly with one or more host computer
• Host
  • Communicate with at least one IoT device through wireless interface
  • Using Node-RED for communicating with those IoT devices
  • Possible to use other solution, but you will have to work out your own technical solution
  • With a web-based interface for end-user to interact with the system
• Others
  • Optionally interfacing with mobile applications

Notes:

• 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

Note that the final project corresponds to 50% of the total subject score.

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