This project is an art installation, that replicates the phenomena of clouds parting. This project is supposed to give the user joy and delight.

The occurrence of clouds parting and the sun shining through is often overlooked, unnoticed, or invisible to an observing eye. Naturally, due to weather patterns in New England, consistently we examine long periods of time where clouds cover the sky day, and night. When sunlight breaks through clouds, it is a truly beautiful natural occasion. The "Clouds Parting" project replicates an abstract view on the fascinating miracle that the average human fails to observe.

In the a previous studio, this installation was just something made to replicate a type of light dialogue. As we reworked our first model, we hoped to make it much more efficient. We also combined our ideas to try and add a purpose to our project. We considered many different uses for our project however, we grasped the idea of making it a interactive and fun piece that would be mounted on a wall. We researched cloud-like installations from art galleries around the world. We hoped that they would shed a light of influence and ideas onto our project. We ended up using mobile cloud pieces of acrylic over an LED light, to make our project extra dynamic. The installation uses four programmed servos, along with a set of wooden arms to move the layers of acrylic over the light. The arms are controlled by a button, sending signals to the servos that make the layers open and close. All of wires, arduinos, and light are inside of a box we created out of thin wood. We wanted our project to bring joy to everyone of any size, and age.

     At the start of our studio, we visited Perkins school for the blind and saw an occupational therapy session. This patient was having trouble putting things close to her face or having her face touched, but she needed to be comfortable with that for her visits to the doctor. Donna, the therapist, was trying to desensitize her by touching different parts of her face and shining a light near her eyes. We wanted to speed up this desensitization process.

     Our project turns this desensitization process into a game. It is also a way to practice the motion of putting a prosthetic eye in. It has a light that the OT can control, like the doctor would. The child would put a marble into a hole in a pair of glasses and then it would go down a marble run and into a bowl.

Our first iteration was very flimsy, bulkey and unreliable, so we decided to add more reliable connections between ramps, we made a 3D printed part that connects them all (in a later iteration). We also made dowel holders that attached to the base to hold up the ramps and the top. To make our project useful for more children, which was a suggestion presented whilst presenting our first real iteration, we decided to incorperate eye holes for both spectacles in the already more realistic glasses. Next, we wanted to be able to simulate the eye doctors office more accurately, so we incorperated an LED light. Finally, we decided to "spice up" the marble run by including textures on the ramps to vary the sounds exerted by it; and then we swapped a 3D printed bowl for the wooden box for the marble. All in all, we made many modifications which have positively impacted the project.

Our project is an interactive video game designed to get people to exercise more. Riding a bike on a trainer stand, the user will watch a screen where their pedaling speed effects the speed of an avatar in the game who is being chased by a bear.

The problem we were trying to solve was that riding an exercise bike indoors is not very fun - the rider feels unmotivated and unsatisfied - so we wanted to add some entertainment. We created a game where the user is being chased by a bear, and the goal is to out run the bear by biking on an exercise bike or a bike with a trainer stand. We thought that this game would be helpful because although biking outside is fun and interesting, indoor biking is not. This goal is that this game would motivate the rider to bike and to bike fast so that the bear would not catch them. If we had more time, there would also be lots of different bears so that the rider would come back to the game to play against the new bears. To design what would be in the game we used Gamemaker, and we used Processing to add the code and to connect it to the hardware. We used an Arduino, a magnet sensor, and a magnet to find how fast the rider is biking.

A cost efficient cardboard chair used to make the reading experience more comfortable and convenient. This chair will add a unique design to a home as well as different conveniences an average chair would not provide.. 

The Link is the future for innovative chairs. It allows the user different privileges a normal chair could not provide. Convenience, efficiency, and multipurpose are the three main purposes of the chair. This chair will not only able someone to read or work, but add simple accessablilties. The first purpose of the chair is having a collection of books closer to the user. Our design team incorporated this aspect by adding a book shelf on the back which seamlessly flows with the design. The second aspect of the Link was adding a desk which would slide out of the chair and cross over the users body making the chair a fantastic working space. Lastly our team added an ottoman to the bottom of the chair. This piece will slide out of the bottom and add a certain amount of comfort and please to your experience.  

In all, this chair is a significant upgrade from normal furniture and will serve as a benchmark for other innovative ideas in the future.  

1- The Link By David Moskowitz and Ben Cohen

2- This image shows all of the features we wanted to include in the link, however, as you can see, all of these features are separate.  In our chair, we combine each of these features in one cost efficient piece of furniture.

3- Purpose- A cost efficient chair used to make the working experience more comfortable and convenient. Solution- The Link is a multipurpose chair, which includes an ottoman, a foldout desk, and a bookshelf. This chair is also made completely out of layered wood which contributes to its unique aesthetics and stability. 

4- This image introduces the concept of transforming furniture, by using on piece of furniture for multiple purposes. We used this image because we found a lot of inspiration in this concept. 

5- We chose this precedent because it expresses the sense of comfort that we wanted to incorporate in the Link. We wanted to create a chair that not only has multiple uses, but is comfortable to use.

6- This precedent introduces the idea of books as part of a chair. We used this idea in our project when creating the bookshelf in the backrest. 

8- This was our first iteration/idea of the chair we wanted to make. We chose use a layered design which, inspired by Ben and Anna’s “The Donut”.  This design also helped with one of our early ideas which was allowing the layers of the backrest to move back and forth individually.  This would have allowed us to make the chair somewhat formable to the back, which is what we had originally discussed for a project.

9- This next sketch shows different ideas and design we had for the structure after coming to the conclusion that the design did not necessarily make the most sense. 

7- We thought that having a circular design with books stored around the bottom would create a unique look creating the illusion that the books are holding up the rest of the structure.

10- This iteration shows our new idea of making the cardboard pieces vertical than horizontal. We thought that if we made the pieces vertical it would make the structure stronger.  Due to absence of strength of the correlation in cardboard, cardboard lacks strength when pressure is applied to a horizontally laid piece.  However, when the pieces are vertically aligned, the pressure is applied to the outer layers of the cardboard, ignoring the correlation, so the cardboard has much more stability.

11- This iteration introduces a new design, where we shrunk the width of the chair, due to the bulkiness of the previous iteration.  Unfortunately we decided not to use this design to criticism that we got.

12- This is one of our last iterations which includes an ottoman that slides out from the bottom of the chair as well as a bookshelf in the back and a side out desk.

13- This diagram displays the many uses of the chair through the use of the desk, the bookshelf, and the ottoman.

14- This diagram shows the construction of the chair by showing all of its different layers, and the mechanism of the desk. 

15- Final image showing chair first position.

16- Final image showing the bookshelf on the back of the chair.

17- Final image displays all the uses of the chair. 

Houseplants bring the beauty of the environment inside and are shown to improve human heath. However, plants often have trouble growing indoors due to irregular sunlight patterns. To optimize a houseplant's ability go grow inside, I created The Phototrobot, which is an autonomous solar panel powered robot that follows visible sunlight. By powering The Phototrobot with renewable energy, I'm utilizing the similarities between plants and solar panels to protect the natural world that my robot brings indoors. 

The Phototrobot was originally inspired by the Rumba robot. I wanted to create a robot that was circular and close to the ground because felt this specific shape would make my robot minimally intrusive while still aesthetically pleasing. Additionally, I was inspired to implement a sunlight searching program because of the Rumba's existing search functionality. 

I later became inspired by rotating solar panels when I began thinking about adding an environmental aspect to my project. I've studied solar panels in the past and learned that specific products exist that rotate them to the most efficient angles based on the time of year. Since these mechanisms are very expensive, I wanted to take the idea of adjusting solar panels based on the current sunlight and scale it down to a smaller robot.

I began thinking about how I could combine solar panels and plants on top of a small robot. Since solar panels need a lot of surface area to be effective, I wanted to tilt them so I could fit more within my confined area. Since I know that in Massachusetts solar panels work best at a 45-degree angle, I thought tilting my solar panels was a good decision. 

I originally wanted to make my solar panels and plants modular, with two different types of components that could be customized on top of the robot. However, I then moved to making five pieces that hold both solar panels and plants so that I wouldn't have to think about complicating the wiring with so many removable pieces. I ended up scrapping this idea when the solar panels were shipped because I realized that the sizing I found on the internet indicated that the panels were much larger than I originally anticipated. I changed the orientation of the solar panels so they would fit on my robot and began modeling one piece with these constraints. 

I also began thinking about how to transfer the wires from the solar panels through all the different layers of my robot. Since the top piece of the robot was originally intended to spin, I wanted to keep this capability and integrate wires that were able to spin with a mechanism called a slip ring. Because of this, I designed a couple different pieces I could 3D print to integrate the wires through the spinning part of the robot. 

Once I made these design decisions, I began editing the original version of The Phototrobot from a previous studio. I wanted to keep some of the design elements that I believed worked well the first time. Specifically, I wanted to use the wood filament 3D printed pot idea and the flexible wood piece for the outside. I kept these parts of the design and started integrating the changes I'd begun to plan. 

I experimented with my modular plant and solar panel holder, the singular solar panel and plant holder, the slip ring holder, and designs for the top piece of the robot during the first couple weeks. After finalizing the designs, I moved to assembling the whole robot. 

As the construction diagram shows, The Phototrobot has three main layers: the base layer that attaches to the wheels, the center layer where the sensors are housed, and the top layer that's visible. On top of this layer, I attached the solar panel holder and the planter that fits into it. 

Once I finished the construction, I began the wiring so the robot would execute it's intended function. I wanted the robot to turn towards the sun when the front wasn't facing it and move towards the sun once the robot was oriented correctly. 

The wiring contains two circuits: the solar panel charging the battery and the sensors giving data to the Arduino so it can set the wheel motor rotation and speed correctly. There are five sensors that track the light in a circle around the whole robot that are all wired separately to the Arduino for five streams of separate data. 

After wiring and programming the robot, I put all the pieces together to get the final product. Overall, the simple design of the project masks the complex circuitry and mechanisms on the inside. 

When you need a tool at NuVu, usually one of two things happen, either they waste time looking for tools in the shop, (where finding a tool can be very confusing) or are searching on their desk (wasting more time in some cases). My solution to this predicament, is to create a chair mount that will hold all the tools you need, reducing time wasted looking for tools, as well as helping desk organization.

There are many, many wonderful things that happen at NuVu, and many great systems to help those happen. However, not every system is fantastic. Currently one of the biggest problems at NuVu is that desks are unorganized, with people not being able to find the tools they need. Although all our tools are stored in the shop, allowing you to grab a new set, this system ends up wasting a lot of transition time, as well as being very confusing at times. In the past there have been a few attempts to solve this problem, like the tool wall at the underground, as well as a similar project done last year. However, these solutions left a lot to be desired, the tool wall, although organizing the tools very well, can make it difficult to find a specific tool, as well as still requiring a trip over to the shop for grabbing the tools. The previous project did improve on this some, mounting to two tables, and holding tools via two flat wood planes with holes for the tools. While this does save trips to the shop, unfortunately the way it was designed made it difficult to put the tools in, as well as making it impossible to move the two tables without removing and reattaching the device.

With all of this in mind, I realized that there were a few things that I had to focus on: that the tools were easy to remove and re-insert, that the tools need to be near the work space, not to put too many things in one general place(to avoid getting cluttered/confusing), that the mount needed to be removable, as well as not getting in the way when moving it around with the mount. In my design, I took advantage of the hole-filled design of the chair, using pegs to attach all the components. I primarily used specifically sized boxes to hold the tools (primarily due to ease of use, and preventing confusion for where things go). The design features a sketchbook/laptop holster on the bottom left side of the chair, holding 15+ pens/pencils, a sketchbook(obviously), as well as a slot for a ruler. On the top of the chair, I have panels vertical panels with boxes for holding the tools. When not using the top panels, they can be folded back to fit the approximate dimensions of the chair. In total, the top panels can hold: a caliper, wire cutters, pliers, scissors, a tape measurer, an allan key set, and a box cutter.