Project description
Background
Exquisite geometry and pattern are great marvels in the world of art. The precision of math embedded into these creative art form often make people in awe of them, such as the Istanbul rugs. Cycloid, which is a figure composed of convoluted curves twisting, is certain an example of that. Inspired by Joe Freedman, our ME218A project would be a machine that generates such graphs.
Functionality
The core functionality is to draw cycloid graphs for users based on the hardware setup they choose. The user can change the pen location, pen orientation, pen color, fulcrum location, etc. And to enhance the user experience as well as to satisfy the ME218A project requirements, we included
- actuation trigger by clapping
- drawing speed control by IR sensing
- buttons to proceed and stop the machine
- audio feedback to guide the users
Operation
The following are the steps of how this machine runs:
- As we power on the device, it would go to the welcoming mode, which is spinning the gears using the hardware setup left from previous run at a low speed.
- If the user hits the “Go” button, the machine would progress into the “Modifying state”. In the “Modifying state” the user would be prompted with a welcome message and asked to change the hardware setup--that is to choose the pen color they want and move the pen orientation/location.
- After they are done with hardware setup and press go, the machine would allow for a fulcrum position adjustment. This adjustment is achieved by moving a pole attached to a workgear, and the user is prompted to use the “Up” and “Down” button to adjust this location.
- After the user is satisfied with the hardware and fulcrum position, once he/she presses the “Go” button, a message would instruct the user to clap hands to actuate the drawing process, and the closer their hands are to the IR sensor when the machine is running, the faster the drawing speed would be.
- Once the machine starts running, the 30-second hourglass would be flipped by a servo motor. During the 30 second of the machine running, the user can adjust the running speed via the IR sensor as mentioned, and the user could stop the machine at any time by pressing the “Stop” button to go back to the “Modifying state” to change the hardware--useful when the user realizes the pen is not in firm contact with the paper. Then the user can go through the adjustment steps again and re-rerun the machine.
- If the machine finishes the 30-second run time without any “Stop” button pressed, the machine would progress to prompt the user to run another 30-second cycle by pressing go, or finish the whole drawing process and take the graph by pressing “Stop”.
- If the user presses “Stop” to finish the process, the machine would output a congratulation message, and will return to welcome mode after some waiting period.
Art in Action
Check another video of the machine creating drawing here.
sample drawingS
Yes, these are actually done by our machine. Different patterns can be produced by adjusting the position of the fulcrum, the position and orientation of the pen as well as the size of the gears.