Task 4- Make a Smart Surface

Friday during class we had a difficult time being able to come up with an idea, and not just a single idea, any idea that more than one of us could latch onto. We had a very difficult time having trains of thought that happened to stop at the same station for any measurable period of time. So, because we had such a trial in the brainstorming process, a couple of us met on Sunday to discuss some other ideas that had come up in idea development.

What we discussed:

Brieana had mentioned a desire to use the arduino to power a pump to inflate something, using inspiration of changing the elevation of buildings to protect the structures from frequent flood damage, i.e. homes in monsoon season. I had been interested in developing a surface similar to the lotus leaf, as we had discussed them in class that day. A lotus leave, while appearing smooth and hydrophilic at a faraway view, has a very intricate 3D microstructure on the surface that traps and uses the water to clean the surface as the droplets slide down the leaf to result in a "self cleaning" behavior. Thinking of a way to emulate a surface like that, and wanting to be able to have something that could change from a 3D surface to a 2D surface to result in a surface that behaves hydrophilically when in a 3D state, and hydrophobically in a 2D state.

So, I combined Brieana's idea with mine, if we sized down the bubbles of her design, and connected them in a grid, essentially resulting in a bubble wrap style surface, we could potentially use that surface in many different applications.

When we met again today we discussed various combinations of everyone's ideas from Friday we actually came to the conclusion that a system of water inflated bubbles could potentially be used in many, many different ways. I felt much better about our discussion today. We had an achievable design that, as we discussed, was applicable in many of the same ways we'd wanted our previous ideas to be applied. We were also all able to be excited and happy about what we were discussing and planning. This was most definitely a vast improvement on how we'd worked on Friday.

So, in thinking of ways to utilize an arduino, I wanted to link to a number of blogs and forums that have different projects that have used arduinos to control the flow of water.

Practical Arduino is a really great blog for ideas. The author whose blog postings are the ones I've read, there are two authors as far as I've seen, has done a lot of interesting and practical projects with arduinos and I think will have a very strong relevancy to a great many of the things we'll be working on as the semester progresses.

Biopsia Project I found this website, that has several artistic collaboration projects listed, by searching arduino water pump on google. They used an arduino and a solenoid valve to control a water pump to drop droplets of water from the ceiling at a user determined rate.

Some other water oriented topics I found in the Arduino Forum:

Motion Activated Water Cannon

5-12V Water pump control problems

I also found this neat video of using an arduino and solenoids to bang out music on a surface