Title: “What Do You Think of Me?”

Narrative:

With this piece we hoped to draw attention to the unproductive discussion on gun control which has continued to dominate the U.S. political environment for the past several years. The user was prompted to speak into a microphone with the question “What Do You Think of Me?” in relation to the presence of a visible paintball gun. Their speech triggered the marker to start firing blue paintballs at a 4’x8’ canvas, oriented vertically, causing the noise of rapid fire to overpower their voice.

The canvas was divided into three material portions; a hard, wooden section, a layer constructed from paper-mache, and a section with plaster applied over mesh. As the user increased their volume to try and overpower the gun, the firing was intended to move vertically along the y-axis and subsequently start hitting the more fragile portions of the canvas. The resulting deterioration of the canvas was be representative of how the shouting match between the two sides of this larger debate is unproductive and more destructive if anything, represented by the resulting accumulation of debris on the floor below the canvas.

Course Themes:

With this project we developed an installation which generates a narrative even before robotic manipulation is employed; the mounted gun and intentional bold provocative text elevate the story line to a heightened level of discomfort for the user, allowing the physical movement and percussiveness of gunfire to be that much more of a surprise during the performance. The resulting canvas artifact makes just as much of a statement as the mounted marker itself with the visible presence of bullet holes and splattered color showing how the artifact and device in robotic sculpture can contribute equally to the project’s effect.

We implemented autonomy in the way the marker operates independently of physical interaction. This decision contributes to the overall concept of the project which is very much focused on the vocal battle and power struggle between the user and the machine.  

Outcomes: 

Overall, we saw the final demonstration as a success. The robot took input from the users speaking into a microphone which was mapped to an x and y position based off of the volume at which the person spoke. Initially we had problems setting up due to missing parts but were able fully assemble the gun and fully demonstrate the robot.

Our narrative called for 3 different materials on the canvas that would behave differently when struck by a paintball. The bottom was the made of plywood where the paintballs would simply break, the middle was made of paper mache where the paintballs would break through the paper mache, and finally plaster at the top which would chip and shatter. We did this to demonstrate how the gun control conversation become more destructive as volume significant than content. The canvas ended up being a success for us as the paintballs not only behaved differently on initial impact but also dried differently which further emphasized our desired effect.

Originally we planned to use a second mic to pick up the sounds of the paintball marker and a speaker to playback the marker sound forcing the user to speak louder. This turned out to be unnecessary as the marker itself was loud enough to drown out the voice of the person. The concussive sound of both the marker firing and paintballs hitting the canvas not only served the purpose of forcing the speaker to talk louder but also gave the demonstration a palpable auditory impression.

The greatest struggle we had during the final demonstration was the center of gravity of the marker. The center of gravity of the marker was a problem for us throughout the semester, originally we had measured the center of gravity without the co2 tank or a hopper. When the tank was added the marker tilted up because it was too back-heavy so a counter balance was added to the barrel to offset the weight. The addition of a full hopper meant the counter balance needed to be lighter but also added a new problem. As the marker fired and the hopper emptied, the center of gravity shifted back again. This change in center of gravity made it difficult for the motors to move the marker forward causing the marker to fire above the canvas. If we were to build this robot again, trying to find a more accurate center of gravity earlier would have helped but we would still have needed to find a way to account for the changing weight in the hopper. It is possible that springs or bungees could have helped but that was a problem that would have needed to be discovered earlier for the best solution to be implemented.

Timing was our main struggle. From building to the performance, better management of our time would have helped us solve problems. If we had the chance to debug the earlier in the process we might have caught some of our issues earlier and would have had a more polished final demonstration.

Related Work:

Wafaa Bilal’s Shoot an Iraqi

http://wafaabilal.com/shoot-an-iraqi/

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DcyquvDEe0o

Whitney Bandel

https://wbandel.com/

Sam Durant’s Dark Institutions

http://www.artnet.com/WebServices/images/ll510618llgpGfDrCWBHBAD/sam-durant-dark-institutions.jpg

Nikki Saint Phalle

http://www.tate.org.uk/art/artworks/saint-phalle-shooting-picture-t03824

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5MUxuY4Hbw&vl=en

http://walkerart.org/collections/publications/art-expanded/pop-gun/

Member Contributions:

Shannon: Video Documentation and editing throughout project, p5.js code, branding design/vinyl cutting, canvas assembly, final assembly

Travis: Arduino code, electronics/motor coordination and implementation, canvas assembly, final assembly

Brandon: CAD Design, fabrication of parts (pulleys, motor plates, marker clamp, etc.), woodshop construction, canvas assembly, final assembly

Technical Documentation:

CAD Files

p5.js Code

Arduino Code

https://github.com/tchambers3/PaintballRobotArduino

https://github.com/tchambers3/PaintballRobot

By Tatyana Mustakos, Svayam Mishra, SooJin Sohn and Yitong Wang

Project narrative

• Final Overall Concept: ”The Hand”, is a robotic arm that rejects all objects placed on its hand, by throwing the objects over behind its shoulder.

• Performance Objectives: Our major performance goals consisted of having our elbow and shoulder rotation hooked up successfully to our pneumatics, as this was the minimum viable animation needed to throw or give the appearance of throwing. After that was setting up the hand to open and close, and the load sensor to detect when the hand has something in it
• Narrative Description: When the viewer/participant approaches the piece, they would have seen an open palm, with an assortment of objects near it, and a few objects on the floor behind it. If needed, a set of instruction either through icons or text indication they should place something in the palm. Once they did, the arm would gently bounce up and down momentarily, then toss the object over its shoulder, and then move its hand back.

Reflection with respect to course theme

• We have taught ourselves that robots are generally made to help out people. Through this project, we are challenging such perception of robots being “helpful” by making a robotic arm that rejects all objects that it receives from users.  Specifically, the arm will first grab an object once received, then suddenly throw away the objects over its shoulder.  In theory, the robotic arm would be expected to help the users in some way (e.g. offer guidance, store the given object to somewhere else, and so on). Instead, the robot will act as its own entity and will not care nor assist with the users and throw anything away, even well-meaning gifts.

Outcomes: Successes and Failures

• We have successfully made the arm to move in the direction we desired. By moving the elbow and the shoulder, the Hand can move the object out of its hand.
• The shoulder actuator cannot output enough force to move the shoulder and lift the whole arm. The problem is that even the air is extracted from the pneumatic actuator, the actuator will not retract properly.
• Our choice of acrylics resulted in having too much weight for the actuators to lift up the armature. Due to that, the fingers cannot grab nor release an object at the right timing.
• The slow nature of the actuator motion does not generate enough momentum to “throw” the object.

Performance Video

Technical References

We did research into preexisting robotic hands and arms to see the different ways to deal with more natural aesthetics and functions

• Sparkfun Tutorials: Getting Started with Load Cells <https://learn.sparkfun.com/tutorials/getting-started-with-load-cells?_ga=2.142226098.125513916.1513572005-941765866.1511167360&_gac=1.170527252.1511585988.EAIaIQobChMI3OyiyvjY1wIVi0oNCh2wZg6nEAAYASAAEgJ26_D_BwE>
• Pneumatics Animation Example <https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/16-375/f2017/text/lib/pneumatics_animation.html>, Garth Zeglin.
•  Pneumatic Valves and Actuators <https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/16-375/f2017/text/lib/pneumatics_animation.html>, Garth Zeglin.
• Pneumatics Animation.sensor
  Protocol <https://courses.ideate.cmu.edu/16-375/f2017/text/_modules/pneumatics_animation/SensorProtocol.html>, Garth Zeglin.
• Shadow Hand <https://www.shadowrobot.com/products/dexterous-hand/>
  

Supplementary Technical Documentations

• Program source code(sensors) + Mechanical CAD files(armature + hand structure) + OpenSCAD files(finger structure)
  • Link: https://drive.google.com/open?id=1PDRmN6g38FdnYzY0HFbwuCRNVQw2aRS0
  • Contents
    • Photos + Videos
    •  Arduino + Python Codes
    • Finger OpenSCAD Designs + Arm CAD Designs:
      • OpenSCAD (in Finger OpenSCAD Designs folder)
        • hands.scad: hand with finger connectors
        • finger.scad: finger(length)creates finger segment with designated length(in mm)
        • finger Modular.scad: the joint that attaches fingers together

• • Photographs:
    • The Hand (front view)
    • The Hand  (bottom view, hand close-up)
      
    • The Hand (top-side view)
    • The Hand (back view)
    • The Hand (forearm bearing)
    • The Hand (sensor connection with actuators)

Member Contributions

• Svayam Mishra 
  • CAD of upper and lower arm
  • CAD of upper arm to pedestal connector segment, and pedestal top
  • Assembly of final construction
• Tatyana Mustakos
  • Original Concept and Ideation
  • Finger Design and print
  • Pedestal frame construction
  • Rigging of springs
  • Assisting with final construction
• SooJin Sohn
  • Arduino and python coding
  • Arm animation Control
  • Exhibit Poster Design
• Yitong Wang
  • Arduino and Python Coding
  • Arm animation control

A project by Alice Duan, Hajin Kim, and Johnny Wu

“A Line in the Sand” explores the relationship between human obsessions and the fleeting nature of sand itself. In a sort of obsessive manner, the machine draws and redraws and redraws the same images, retracing its steps each time. However, due to the physical nature of the sand, unable to really accurately draw the same thing again as the image becomes more obscured with each trace. The images are susceptible to any outside influence as well: a simple gust of wind, a stray foot, a misplaced hors d’ouevre.

spiral

world peace, simply drawn

The machine draws symbols that humanity has either relatively recently, or seemingly always been rather obsessed with (the DMZ line between North and South Korea, world peace, nuclear war). It also errs on the more symbolic side at times, and hints at the point of the whole piece a little more directly (a spiral obsessively drawn repeatedly).

—

Reflection

Our robot went along with the course theme by interacting with sand as the external object that it was using as its medium. The autonomous behavior we achieved juxtaposed the playful, childlike nature of sand with the rigidity and technology of the plotter that we built on top of it. We chose sand as the medium to play upon a common saying (which we also named our project after), “a line in the sand.” This is basically a point of no return: something that cannot and should not be crossed, but once it is, is irreversible.

Our drawings were of various contested or otherwise controversial political borders (the Koreas, US/Mexico, etc.) as well as symbols such as a dove and a globe symbolizing peace, a mushroom cloud symbolizing war, and a spiral symbolizing loss of control. Through these provoking images as well as the soothing motion and sound of the motors working to create the drawing in the sand, we explored themes of peace, war, obsession, and boundaries, both political and personal. The slow paced plotter drawing in the soft sand created a calming effect, giving off the false impression of peace as it depicted some topics that many individuals have strong emotional reactions to.

Through the completion of this project, we learned that the robot’s interactions with the object (in this case, sand) are extremely dependent upon its physical properties. We controlled a lot of the performance–the images, pacing, size, and stylus. Yet as if it has a mind of its own, the robot and sand would interact in unexpected ways, leaving deeper or shallower imprints and falling softly into place instead of rigidly maintaining its form. Another interesting exploration that animate robotic manipulation allowed us to delve into was the emotional aspect of it. Something that is often seen as soulless, deterministic, and cold, the robot was still able to not only manipulate the object it was interacting with, but also invoke some sort of emotion in its viewer by drawing very provoking images. The autonomy of the robot in doing so lends itself to an interesting question that can be further explored by future projects: whether the autonomous robot is perceived as having a mind and intention of its own.

—

Outcomes

At a quick glance:

What worked: 

the machine (we built a plotter from scratch!)

the budget (<$200)

the sand

the transportation and setup (200+ lbs of sand, etc.)

pouring in the 150th lb of sand: success!

What didn’t work:

the speed (the different speeds didn’t differ all that much)

the expression of the narrative as a whole (many of the audience members at the showing did not pick up the narrative until mildly explained to)

As a whole, we’d like to think of our project as a relative success. However, we do regret to admit that not enough time was spent hashing out the specific details for how we would express the narrative. Too much of it was left to the last minute, and the parts that we ran out of time to get to fell to the wayside. Because of this, a bit was lost in translation.

note: the lack of narrative AND many measurements

initial sketch of the earliest phases again note: lack of narrative even in drawing

Specific things, such as the lack of variation of speed, highly affected the performance of the project when the time came. We just assumed that because the code said it would be 3 times as fast, the machine would just follow and be 3 times as fast as well. However, you really had to squint to notice a change in speed. Not enough time was given for reiteration for our build, which meant that we just had to roll with essentially a single speed machine.

200lbs of SAND

Something positive that we learned was that it’s okay to go big on a project. Courage when it came to our decisions was vital. Had we been more timid, we would have settled for a much smaller machine, with much smaller amounts of sand (or even worse, no sand). When it came to skills we had little skill in (ie. solidworks, wood working, etc.), we just did it! That was very rewarding.

so many numbers

During the build process, we learned the extreme importance of accurate measurements (and pre-measuring!). Due to the nature of our machine, there were a number of press fits and things that had to be as near to exactly in line as possible. When our measurements and tolerances were correct, construction was a breeze. However, if they were even a millimeter off, a simple five minute press-fit turned into an hour long hacking process.

—

Members

Alice Duan- Gcode compiler, computer tinkerer, footprint bearer

Hajin Kim- CAD design, photo taker, 3D printed parts, Korea enthusiast

Johnny Wu- Translation of idea to image, video creater, woodwork, sandman

—

Links to files

source code

all cad files

https://drive.google.com/open?id=1Qv6_2O5MTDa6SslHCcAZVukxx0o-nKNMo7jrt8beq_Y

Link to PDF-

https://docs.google.com/a/andrew.cmu.edu/document/d/124oxmdzFqfla4w-DhsWbA_ynJvUkNC0xcC9ZrFa91-8/edit?usp=sharing

With our proof of concept demo we wanted to focus on depicting the intended scale of the project and the relative positioning of all the parts. For the sake of the demo we used a roughly 4’x6′ whiteboard to represent the canvas and positioned the “robot” directly in line with it 8′-10′ away. The free-standing microphone is placed adjacent to the robot at an angle so the user can see both the machine and the resulting masterpiece. This will allow them to understand how their use of the microphone affects the outcome of the painting. As they speak the robot will launch paintballs at the canvas (represented by the thrown laser cut pieces) causing them to explode color onto the surface (represented by the coloring of the whiteboard).