The final piece is shown above. This project is a greyscale 2-bit mechanical display with a resolution of 16×16. It uses two stm32s, one pi 4, thirty-two servos, and a lot of plastic to accomplish something mesmerizing. I came up with the idea for this project on a cross-country drive last summer. It uses a mechanism that allows for an under-actuated system. The mechanism allows for an actuator for every row and column to control an entire array of pixels.
Full Simulation
Above is the visualization with clock overlay. In this mode only 3 colors are used as one is reserved for the clock face.
Display Functioning Displaying Time
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/adglLqhnWIk
Display with Image and Time
Display Image Only
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/ShtLG9M88d4
Some Artistic Decisions
With the limit of only 4 colors, greyscale provided the best visibility. I tried a bunch of different color combinations I found on adobe color explore and none of them fit as well as greyscale. With each continued revision of the displays, I will try new colors.
The algorithm that runs the animations between display states moves multiple rows of pixels at the same time. This is because I thought it was far more mesmerizing watching as many pixels move simultaneously as possible.
Possible Continuations
I think printing the pixels using a multicolor 3d printer would allow the texture of the surfaces to appear more uniform. This would also reduce the inaccuracy of the display as the misaligned stickers would interfere with adjacent pixels like they sometimes do now.
Make a bigger one. I would like to scale the resolution of the display up to 32×32 or 48×32. The 16×16 resolution leaves a lot to be desired and the ability to recognize what is being displayed would be hugely improved by the added resolution.
Conclusions
Overall, I learned a lot from this project and got a lot of joy out of it. I learned python and how to communicate to daughter controllers. I got far enough in a mechanical display project to make images and make artistic decisions. I am happy with what I accomplished this term and look forward to what comes of the project in the future.
More Stuff
If you would like to know more about the project read through my previous posts and feel free to send me an email at eandreassen@wpi.edu
I also got to watch people experience my piece and react to it. (My favorite part of completing any project!)
Github Full Simulation Release
The full release of all the control software is not done yet, but the simulation software is. The simulation is downloadable via GitHub at the link below.
https://github.com/Rolling-Blocks/RB-CODE-Prototype-1/releases/tag/Virtualization
The Full release of the software with everything you need to make your own is in the pipe and is coming soonTM .
This was a really cool concept and the results are really impressive for the given time period. I really wish we got to here the sound of it working in person.
This is probably the most technologically complex piece this year. So sad it wasn’t working in the final presentation but I am still really happy to see it work in the video!