A Line in the Sand

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.

 

 

 

 

 

 

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).

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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.

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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.)

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.

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.

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.

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.

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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

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Links to files

source code

all cad files