Theo Jansen: The art of creating creatures

SmartSurfaces202 daily inflate wind

We redefined the high value problem as the stagnant air within the home, including Impure air, Low amount of oxygen, High level of dust particle and Inefficient indoor ventilation (wind). The inspiration of form came from Jelly fish.

 We co-worked to build the physical model, using fabric, acrylic, LED light and bellow.

The Audurino circuit and lighting effect.

The spectacles are: 

•Sensor responsive  to the air quality

•Multimedia application: match the rhythm of the inflation to the LED light blinking and the music

•Two-direction operation

SmartSurface201 daily inflate wind

We are required to move the design done by others further and refine it. I think the previous design is smart but a little bit too much mechanical. Also the mechanism is complicated and we try to simplify it. But we will keep the hexagon shape. We got the inspiration from this inflation installation .

So we redefined our purpose as designing an interior partition with air purifier modules. Each module has a bellow on the back side and the fabric cover in the front side. When the air in the room is less clean than the desired standard which the sensor could test it, the module will start pump the clean air in and inflating/deflating the fabric cover, just like a breathing jelly fish. Combining with colorful LED light, we could image the inflation effect would look like the Water Cube in Beijing.

SmartSurface102 seasonally rotate light

We are satisfied with the form of the spiral fan and try to refine the comprehensive design taking into account of  different components. First, we redefined our problem as optimizing the efficiency of utilizing solar energy and improving interior ventilation. Thus, we ideally planned to put the solar panels on the spiral strips to collect solar energy while rotating. But we had difficulty with making a rotating circuit, and finally ended up with putting the solar panels on the back of the framework. Second, we think it is a good idea to design a daily rechargeable smartsurface which collects solar energy each daytime and use it at night for lighting. In this case, the brightness of LED lights is determined by the sunlight status that day, smartly mimicking and responding to the nature daylight. Third, we made many draft models to test whether the whole system will work well. For the audurino part, Dylan and Branden built a circuit with a photoresistor which the brightness of the LED lights would respond to the environmental light. 

SmartSurface101 seasonally rotate light

The inspiration came from this project: http://www.designbuzz.com/entry/flow-bamboo-lighting-works-on-the-principle-of-vertical-wind-turbine/ I found this when I typed our three words in google search:)

We plan to stack swirling cardboard strips to make the parabolatic curved surface and insert tiny LED lights on the edge of this surface. The surface can rotate along the central axis when the rotation of the LED lights produce another kind of "surface" as visual effect. Ideally we could use wind to push the surface to rotate and produce power to keep the lights on. So differenct wind speed or strenght in different season will influence the rotation of the surface and the brightness of the lights, indicating the "seasonally" factor. But this calls for some advanced techniques. For now, we could just settle down with battery for the light and wind for the surface rotation:) This surface is about 1'*1', and the whole surface will consist of 9 identical surface. We could also write a program to let those LED lights go on and off in an interesting way.