This is an initial test for using kinect input in Unity. In this example the object and animation is created in maya and triggered in unity using basic collision detection. Future research will examine how the system of triggers used in video games can overlaid in the physical environment.

Initial Tests for a multi-user environment. In this setup, there is 1 active user, whose full skeleton is being tracked while the centroid of all other users is tracked. The active user can “pass” the full tracking to any other user in the scene by pointing at them.

Nick Puckett will be co-directing the Beyond Mechanics workshop cluster with Simon Kim and Mariana Ibanez at Smart Geometry 2012.

This cluster provides the opportunity for architectural designers to participate in the formulation, manufacturing, and implementation of Responsive Polymers. The cluster will investigate methods for designing the form and behavior of multi-scalar prototypes from a molecular level through to material assemblies.

Shape-setting materials provide a new set of potentials for designing dynamics in objects and systems. This type of kinetics goes beyond the traditional scope of actuation by mechanical movements. Unlike traditional kinetic systems that rely on separate and discrete parts working together, we are developing a design discipline of smart material that can create movement through its singular chemistry and geometry. Dynamic materials also promise a break in conceptualizing movement through a model of engineering. With smart materials, the reliance on a mechanical frame and surface is dispensed so that a more direct line is established between production and application. For this workshop we will be focusing on Shape-Memory Polymer and Hydrogel. Shape-Memory Polymer can be trained into a position, baked to that form, and then manipulated into another shape. A stimulus such as heat moves the material back to the original shape. Hydrogel is a super-absorbant polymer that responds to a specific temperature range by expanding/contracting in volume up to 300%.

We will be making our own Responsive Polymers and designing full-scale Prototypes.

The Kinect Research Framework is an open toolset  for developing new interfaces to media and spaces using the Kinect.  It is based around skeleton / hand tracking servers written in Processing using simpleopenni that can send the tracking data to any program that can receive TCP/UDP data.  The goal for the project is to create a simple, open protocol to simplify Kinect programming and create a dynamic network of interoperability between programs, hardware, and the physical world.

Kinect Research Framework Download

Other videos showing the development of the KRF can be seen HERE

Nick recently gave a lecture/workshop cosponsored by the School of Architecture and the Department of Computer Science at the University of Arkansas. The lecture highlighted Puckett’s recent work with “active” building materials such as grass, shape-memory polymer, bacteria, algae, and hydrogel.  The two-day workshop introduced programming techniques for using the Kinect in conjunction with Arduino to create responsive robotic components.

The ACADIA 2011 Annual Conference will explore integrative trajectories and areas of overlap that have emerged through computation between design, its allied disciplines of engineering and construction, and other fields, such as computer science, material science, mathematics and biology. The conference will highlight experimental projects in which methods, processes, and techniques are discovered, appropriated, adapted, and altered from elsewhere, and digitally pursued.

The aim of the conference is to project a fundamentally different attitude towards collaboration, one that needs not be limited to the professions and disciplines comprising the building industry. It will do so by featuring the work of designers and researchers who engage design as a broadly integrative endeavor by fluidly navigating across different disciplinary territories, and who deploy algorithmic thinking, biomimicry, computation, digital fabrication, material exploration, and/or performance analyses to discover and create processes, techniques, and products that are qualitatively new. Some take scientific and engineering ideas as starting points of the design investigation. Others are embracing mathematics and geometry as a rich source of ideas for articulating form, pattern, surface and structure in architecture. Many are increasingly looking for inspiration in nature to discover new materials and new material behaviors, which can enable an architecture that can respond dynamically to changing environmental conditions. They all rely on computational techniques for design explorations.

Active Patterns is a study in the use of shape memory polymers as a responsive facade material. The temperature at which the material is determined by us in the lab by altering the ratio of its chemical makeup. The overall “behavior” is thus programmed through the geometry of the pattern cut/scored into the polymer. Future work will focus on quantifying the geometric relationship to the overall movement of the system.

The material used in Active Pattern is produced via Project BlackBox.

BlackBox Development:  Stage 1

Project BlackBox is a production device which allows the creation of 1:1 panels of shape-memory polymers and hydrogels.  The goal for the device is to transfer properties and behaviors developed as “material samples” and scale them up to usable “material prototypes”.  In collaboration with the Dept. of Chemical Engineering at the University of Kentucky we designed and constructed a machine that would cure the polymers or hydrogels using a UV light source.  When the chemicals used to make the materials are mixed they are in a liquid form, and the UV light hardens it to a material similar to plastic.

The process began by researching methods used by large scale production facilities of UV cured materials.  Typically these companies used a fixed bar of curing light and passed the sheets of material under the light using a conveyor belt.  This system was not an option for us due to the space and budget limitations associated with this approach.  In the end we decided to invert this system by fixing the material and moving the light source over it similar to a scanner.  We are currently in the process of scaling the operation up to its full potential of 18″X32″ sheets.  This size is important as it represents the maximum sheet size that can be cut on our laser cutter.

The goal for this first stage of development is to create a modular facade shading system created from the polymer which allows the material to respond directly to the heat without any mechanical or electrical input

FieldCondition is a research project which investigates the potential of custom fabrication devices in relationship to an active material. This iteration of the device focuses on changing the control mechanism for the cutting head from a linear actuation system to a custom-made 4-axis arm. The system also updates the control algorithms which control the cutting head in relationship to its speed and position. Under this system each cutting strip can be understood as an individual animation, the mower then functions as a “playhead” as it moves across that animation. This means that the mower can be moved a range of speeds forward or backward, and the system simply calculates its position and calls the appropriate values from the database.

Our ongoing research into Shape-Memory Polymers is focused on their potential in temporary form-making and fabrication. At a designed temperature the polymer becomes completely malleable and can be formed into a range of shapes. Once the material drops below this temperature it becomes rigid again and holds whatever shape is given. If the material is heated beyond a given point it will return to the original shape that it was cast in. (In this case it is flat) This experiment uses a small sample of SMP with a tab laser cut out on 3 sides. The goal was to create a simple , custom, robotic arm that could form the rectangular tab into precise shapes. The arm is controlled using a maya animation using previously developed tools. Going forward the goal is to create a system of hundreds of these tabs that can be “posed” into precise patterns over a large area.