Role: Electrical System Design, Mechanical System Design/Fab
Overview: The goal of this project was to find a way to delight users with a novel experience. Along my graduate design studio team, we developed a new type of kinetic mirror with a motion that baffles those who approach it. The mirror was constructed with an open backing so that curious minds can see the inner functioning of the device.
Date: 2019
Collaborators: Peter Gyory, Farjana Ria Khan
How it works: The motion of the device is created through servos attached to stepper motors via wooden arms. Each arm has a magnet on the end. The magnet moves the stars (each with their own embedded magnet) through the frosted acrylic sheet. The system consists of 24 servos, 24 stepper motors, 24 motor drivers, three Arduinos, an Xbox Kinect, and a laptop to run the show.
Future Improvements: I never quite agreed with the message behind this project. My team wanted to explore the idea of isolation in the cosmos and the existentialism that comes with it. The Kinect in the podium senses objects and people and moves the stars away from them.
However, I see this as an opportunity to explore an entirely opposite concept. In reality, every star, every bit of matter in the universe, is tugging, pulling, and interacting with one another. There is no distance that can set the gravitational force between two objects to zero. Light miraculously reaches our eyes from distant galaxies. Those hopeful and scientific ideas are what I would like to explore with this project in the future.
