Assignment
For this assignment, we had to create a smart system commissioned by TU Delft in groups of six within 4 weeks. The goal of the smart system was to make the city more resilient against the consequences of climate change. The design had to comply with certain requirements, including having at least one input from an API that could trigger at least one output through an Arduino Wi-Fi board. Our design aimed to enhance TU Delft's resilience against rising temperatures caused by climate change, with the intention of improving life for the students.
Process
While making the design, I was primarily responsible for ensuring the Arduino outputs worked based on the right inputs and for conceptualizing the idea. Throughout the process, I experimented extensively with Arduino to make all the functions we wanted to have in our model work. For the walking umbrellas, I used a bicycle chain, two gears, and two servomotors to make them rotate around the model. For the fog, I used a small device that could evaporate water by shaking at a high frequency.
Challenges
This was the first time I worked with chains and gears, and because I could not salvage gears from the bike I got the chains from, I had to create my own gear. This was a big challenge because there are a lot of different factors that can decide whether a chain fits the gear or not. Additionally, I had to externally power all the servomotors because the Arduino board could not handle the power load. I ended up creating the gear through laser cutting.
Result
The result is a small model of the Technical University in Delft. The inputs are being sent from a weather API to the Arduino board. We used the inputs: air humidity, temperature, and UV strength. Low air humidity combined with high temperature will trigger a reaction from the fog dispenser in the model. High UV strength combined with high temperature will trigger a reaction from the umbrellas. We also chose to add a lot of green in our model because this also helps with cooling down the perceived temperature.