Jan 24, 2023, 12:00PM to 1:50PM

Welcome! The main objectives for today are reviewing your first hands-on pneumatics mechanisms and continuing to look at precedents in the field.

Administrative

  1. Please sign up for a presentation slot for the Precedent Research assignment if you have not already done so.

Precedent Research

We’ll begin with three brief student presentations on related work.

Assignment Review

We’ll spend a substantial part of today’s class reviewing and discussing the pneumatic mechanisms you created for the first assignment. There are a lot of posts to explore and we’d like everyone to have a chance, so we’ll keep the pace moving along. When your post comes up, please try to keep your explanations concise but give each example enough time that we can digest your experiments. As others talk, please always be thinking of the question you might ask.

Break

Five-minute mid-class rest break.

Breakout

We will randomly assign two or three per breakout room for a quick five-minute integrative discussion. Please discuss the work we’ve just reviewed and come up with a novel project idea inspired by the examples. No constraints at this stage: these could be extravagant and imaginative, but please include some elements of costume and air. Also discuss, what worked, what didn’t work, and what you think has potential. Afterward, we’ll all meet again for a quick round of explaining your project idea.

DC Motor Pump Introduction (time permitting)

On Thursday we will spend class time experimenting with powered actuation of small pneumatics. If time permits today, we’ll present a brief show and tell about the components and principles. Next week we’ll add the microcontrollers and program motion sequences.

Assignment

On Thursday we’ll formally introduce the third assignment. It will be a pair project to construct and program a small pneumatically-actuated textile installation, with three deadlines: update 1 on Jan 31, update 2 on Feb 7, and a full presentation and critique on Feb 9.