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The work of the Beyond Mechanics Cluster was featured in an article by Carla Leitao in the Huffington Post.  The Cluster developed responsive, wearable prototypes using responsive polymers.

Beyond Mechanics

Smart Geometry 2012

Cluster Champions:  Mariana Ibanez / Simon Kim / Nick Puckett

The Beyond Mechanics Cluster at Smart Geometry 2012 developed wearable, responsive prototypes using shape-memory polymer.  The workshop used Project Blackbox to design and create custom polymers on site that allowing the response temperature to be determined as part of the overall design process.  The prototypes focused  on issues of Clothing/Cladding: a wearable computing and a building envelope system developed by IKstudio.  This system gives the opportunity to develop prototypes that address issues of interface and kinetics at a range of scales.

ABSTRACT

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 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 within its atomic structure – without any external hinge or gear.  Hydrogel is a super-absorbant polymer that responds to a specific temperature range by expanding/contracting in volume up to 300%.

1. MAKING

The two polymers, Shape-Memory Polymer and Hydrogel, will be produced and manufactured on site using Project BlackBox, a device developed by Alt N research in collaboration with the Bioactive Interfaces Lab at the University of Kentucky.   Blackbox is a UV curing system that was built to scale up small material samples to usable 1:1 building materials.  In both cases the polymers are mixed using varying amounts of a Monomer, Crosslinker, and a Photo Initiator.   Both Hydrogel and SMP respond to heat and by varying the ratio of the chemicals, and we will design the specific response temperature of the material by adjusting these ratios in the lab.

2. PROTOTYPING

In parallel to the production of the Responsive Polymers, we will examine the scale of production and effects that this material promotes.  Once it is cured, the polymers can be laser cut and worked into different configurations.  This will allow participants to develop the specific potentials of each system through a series of prototypes.  These prototypes will focus on issues of Clothing/Cladding: a wearable computing and a building envelope system developed by IKstudio.  This system gives the opportunity for participants to develop prototypes that address issues of interface and kinetics at a range of scales. The small-scale and intimacy of the body can be tested against the large and urban scale of the building and the city. These tests are not models or proxies, but are seen as full-scale working prototypes.  The results of these tests will then be fed back into the overall manufacturing and design system to allow iterative adjustments at the chemical and assembly level.

GameSpace Workshop.

Faculty of Environmental Design, University of Calgary

This 4 day workshop introduced methods of using the tools of video game development as a means of designing responsive spaces.  Using Unity3d, a Kinect, and Maya students generated virtual environments and overlaid them onto the space of the gallery.  This was done by tracking the movements of the people in the gallery via the kinect and digitizing them into the virtual world in real time.  Interaction with the virtual objects was achieved by creating virtual volumes as triggers for digital behaviors.

Kasian Gallery – University of Calgary Dept. of Environmental Design

Nick Puckett / AltN Research + Design

Development Team: Anton Bakerjian, Ian McHone

Partner: BioActive Devices Laboratory at the University of Kentucky

Images: Michael Haas

Project BlackBox is addressing the issue of responsiveness at the building scale by creating smart surfaces that actuate without the use of electricity. The systems and behaviors are designed at a chemical level as smart materials that actuate in response to a specific temperature. To achieve this, fundamental shifts were made in the relationship between material scientists and designers, creating an environment of design and prototyping within an engineering laboratory. Initial tests showed that shape-memory polymer could be manipulated by standard equipment such as laser cutters and sign cutters, but the lab was only equipped to produce small material samples. Due to the lack of commercially available equipment, we designed and produced a new device for the lab that produces responsive polymer sheets large enough for prototyping. Turning the lab into a small production facility created a collaborative design environment with a very short feedback loop between the formulation of material and testing of prototypes. It also allowed us to develop the chemical ratios that program the material behavior as a part of our overall design process.

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.