Week 10: Practical Project (The Bristlebots, Lights and Corals)

Bristlebot Update

At our Saturday meeting, we discussed the final components of the bots. As per Harish Aravind’s suggestion, we needed to buy Photoresistors and Transistors to add to the bot build.

According to this source, photoresistors, also know as LDRs or Light Dependent Resistors, are light-sensitive resistors whose resistance decreases as the intensity of light they are exposed to increases.

Image of a Photoresistor

Image of a Transistor

Transistors as defined by this other source, are tiny switches that can be triggered by electrical signals which means that they control the flow of electric current. With these two components, the bots would be light sensitive and reactive.

Light Update

In regard to Tanya Menadue’s lights, she was able to create a code that could change from blue to a murky, yellowish tone at a push of a button. All we needed to do now was to purchase the LED strips.

Coral Update

For the corals, I asked for Puneet Sharma’s help in creating the different coral designs. I originally created a Coral Taxonomy with three different types of coral inspired by actual coral species.

Moala Coral Gardens

Flat Corals - 10 layers of organic shapes stacked atop one another (30 mm ht, 2 pcs). These corals were inspired by Fijian Coral Gardens

Staghorn Coral

Cactus Corals - slotted type, freestanding sculpture (80 mm, 3 pcs). These corals were based on Staghorn corals

Acan Coral

Cloud Corals - slotted type, freestanding sculpture (50 mm, 2 pcs). The appearance of these corals was inspired by the Acan Coral

Puneet had provided me a set of corals to prototype on cardboard for the following week.

Enclosure Update

We ran out of acrylic to cut out all the sides of the enclosure and didn't have enough time to go back to Reverse Garbage and buy another frame (we weren't even sure if the last one was still available). Going against our principle of using recycled material, we ended up buying more acrylic from Griffith due to convenience and price (it cost the same as the second hand pieces).

Jennie Franklin was able to get hold of Alex Innocenti at the workshop and ask for his assistance in cutting the enclosure parts. We then meet that afternoon to assemble it using Magic Tape. All the sides fit perfectly. All we needed to finish up were the bots and prototype the coral.