Wavics

[Project title] Wavics [Objective] Enhancing user experience [Function] Allow users to inflict their decisions on the design [Materials] Straws + rubber rug [Technology] Grasshopper + Arduino [Team] Ina Leonte, Andrei Mitisor, Mihai Aostacioaie [DESCRIPTION] WAVICS is a sinergic project that is investigating material reactions to human behavior. It enables the audience to inflict a sinuous movement on the surface of a 62,5 x 40 cm surface made out of 3312 drinking straws, without touching it. An elastic shape is deformed remotely through a smartphone interface. By moving a finger on the screen the user is indicating the place of the deformation and generating movement throughout the whole surface, as the coloured straws follow the form of the rubber surface. The whole installation is controlled through an Arduino board connected to a Grasshopper definition which holds all the instructions, constraints and receives the data from the device they are connected to. The Arduino then tells the motors where to move the ball that deforms the surface. [MATERIALS] Some of the materials are preassembled and retail available such as the rubber rug and the drinking straws that are the visible part of the installation. The electronic part is composed of: a computer source, an arduino board, stepper driver, stepper motor, wires, belts and pulleys The frame is an OSB board with plywood. [HISTORY] Step 1: Smartici is the initial version of our project and it was a concept conceived during The Parametrica Generative Optimization Workshop in 08 -14 April 2013. The interactive nature of the idea stuck with us and we kept on researching new ways to put it into practice and to see how people react to it. That is how WAVICS came to life. A project all about interaction. Step 2: Wavics 1.0 was put together a month after the previous exhibiton for a new event, Bucharest Architecture Office Night, 23.05.2013. It was assembled anew with new features, better control, versatile frame that could now be placed both hanging or vertically, depending on the exhibition space. Step 3: Developing a new prototype in the future that can interact with more users at once, has more puslatile surface, covers a larger surface. We want to experiment with more materials, new patterns and textures and light sources while the resolution of the design