After receiving critiques about changing up the length of the pom pom pendulums and experimenting with different locations of where to place the wind chime units, Team Pom Pom met to discuss ideas. Helen suggested maybe placing the units and sensors in different places around the house, such as on the side of a table, on the cabinet, front door, etc. Elle was intrigued in finding a way to attach her unit and sensor to her mannequin, so whenever she rotated it, it would trigger someone else’s wind chimes.
I experimented with attaching my new wind chimes to the side of the refrigerator, and tape the sensor to the freezer door. In this situation, my wind chime unit would be still and silent until Helen pulled out her chair or Elle rotated her mannequin. I would then activate one of their wind chime units whenever I opened my freezer door to create an ambient presence by proxy.
Issues
While the video I took shows no problems at all, there were numerous issues with this set up behind the scene. By making the pendulums longer, it added a lot of weight that the servo structure could not support when it was upside down and attached to the side of the fridge. It kept coming apart and I had to repeatedly glue it back together. I tried to remove some of the pom poms and bells and shorten the pendulums, but the structure still kept falling apart. Because I removed a lot of the bells, the wind chime sound was not as strong as I had wanted it to. The alligator clips were also very precarious no matter how much I taped them down and they kept unclipping.
While I am very pleased with the way the new and colorful wind chime unit looks with longer pendulums, I believe I will have to return to the original design concept of just having the unit sit on top of a table/desktop. I will experiment further with elevating the servo support structure so I can still have the longer pendulums, but also find a balance so it’s not too heavy and it falls apart!
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