The interactive coffee tables are a project that strive to promote collaboration. They do so by encouraging people to bring their tables together. As more and more tables come together, the colors that light the tables become more and more complex and interesting to watch.

For each number of tables put together there is a set lighting effect. When the tables are alone they fade between shades of pink. When paired, they cycle slowly through the rainbow. The lighting of the tables when alone is a balance between aesthetically pleasing and bland. This means despite looking good alone, people are compelled to bring them together.

In this studio, I wanted to create something that would allow people to run faster and more efficiently, while also being conveniently portable and unpowered. I came up with two ideas for how to do this, and worked on the first in the previous studio. In this studio, I worked on the second idea. This is a modified cast which uses leaf springs to capture energy when the wearer is about to push off the ground and release it for the push off. When running, there is a small amount of negative work for the ankle when the runner shifts forward past the foot, causing the ankle to unflex. Then there is a large amount of work for the ankle when it must flex to push the foot off the ground and propel the runner forwards. The leaf springs capture this negative work by resisting when the ankle unflexes, and push back when the ankle flexes. They are designed to only resist when the ankle unflexes past a 90 degree angle with the leg, and thus do not strain the wearer when they are standing.

The very first idea for this project was an attachment that allowed non-amputees to wear athletic prosthetics, as they are more efficient for running than human legs. Due to the price of these prosthetics, however, the idea was changed and split into two parts: an attachment for below the foot, and one for above. The attachment for below the foot mimicked an athletic prosthetic, providing a curved bottom and a spring to absorb energy when first hitting the ground. The other attachment would incorporate leaf springs to help the foot flex. At the time, the second idea was very undeveloped.

This project was faced with a few very large challenges. The first was creating a holder for the leaf spring on the bottom of the cast that would rotate. Originally, I planned to make it with wood, but found that the medium would not be strong enough, so I decided to 3D print. Once the pieces were 3D printed, however, attaching them to the bases securely proved to be a difficult task. After designing a way to attach them, I had to work with many small parts to actually do so. The entire process was very time consuming.

The second challenge I faced was attaching the leaf springs. I planned to drill holes in them and screw them in, but when the time came I found that our equipment was not powerful enough to drill through the tough steel. The dremel, however, could, so I used it to create notches for screws to go into.

The third challenge was making the leaf springs behave how I wanted the to. When I first put them in the cast, I found that they were so strong that they rotated the pieces they were attached to. After reinforcing the pieces with lock nuts, I found that depending on the amount of spring steel behind the holder, the leaf spring could either want to go up or down. Also, when in use, instead of bending, the leaf springs would be pushed back instead. Both of these problems were solved when I attached stoppers to the leaf springs that prevented them from going back through the holders after a certain point. After that, however, I found that the project was not as efficient as it could be because instead of bending with one's foot the leaf springs would shift forward in relation to the foot. To mitigate this, I attached some rubber to the bottom of the end of the leaf springs in order to increase friction.

The first iteration was the cast with the pieces that would hold the leaf spring attached. This would be changed according to how the first tests with the leaf springs went.

The second iteration has some improvements to the overall stability of the project to combat the strength of the leaf springs. All of the attachments to the cast were secured with multiple lock nuts. In addition, the top holders were changed to include 2 screw holes as the leaf springs needed to be attached with 2 screws.

The third iteration improved on the performance of the leaf springs and includes the stoppers and a piece on the end of the leaf springs that the foot pushes against. 

Today was a solid day. Since there wasn't much work to do we took our time, carefully prepping our mold and casting solutions. We had to mixed the solvent (A) and solute (B) and stirring them thoroughly. We then poured the new solution into our negative casts of our mask. The mold is currently forming to the shape of our cast and will be done later tonight. I managed to complete our presentation except for the final slide. Once the mold is finished, I can connect the gel to the mask and complete the mask. 

The last few days we've been constructing our mask fit. We've got the facial contours down and are currently working on adjusting the connection of the 3D print and the AirFit F10. Our first actual prototype has areas for improvement however, it isn't far from the final product. In the photos above, our mask is being held together with ductape. A first step toward moving forward from here is to find a clean and durable gluing solution. 

Today we started out the day by walking around closer to nuvu to look for more dogs and then we planned to go to buddy dog later in the day. Unfortunately we only saw one dog and then when we tried to call buddy dog to tell them that we were coming in today they didn't answer until it was too late for us to go since it is so far away. Instead, when they answered we asked them if we can come tomorrow. So, we spent today uploading pictures(we're still not done!!!!). Tomorrow I plan to wear my walking shoes so that in the morning we can search for more dogs and then in the afternoon we'll go to buddy dog!!! 

Today we walked around Cambridge to meet dogs! Here are some pictures of the first dog we met, Harold. I will upload the rest of the pictures we took tomorrow!