Degree Final Year Project

Finalized Flower-Blooming Mechanism Design Plan 3D Printed Mechanism The finalized printed blooming mechanism seems stable with self-locking nut. I test-run the mechanism and it works fine at this stage. Blooming Motion without Petals  5 Output Arms 6 Output Arms Blooming Motion with Petals Pulsing LEDs  Pulsing Light Effect 1 Pulsing Light Effect 2 Both light effects have experimented in the early stage. However, further refinement and debugging will be done to match the art direction of the overall project. Core Experience Video The video below demonstrates the core experience of the physical light installation. Current technical production that have been solved are: Connection between Master & Slave Arduino Flower-blooming mechanism [Stepper Motor] LEDs Pulsing Effect Heartbeat Detection Next Plan: 1.  Exploration on fabrications        -Design & Evaluate choices of material and art style 2. 3D print all the compartments (5-8 sets) 3. Set up...

Actual Site Setup The actual setup takes place in the IIS room. Technical hardware needed is LIDAR, ultrashoot projector & HDMI cables. Core Experience Video The video below demonstrates the core experience of floor projection mapping. There are 4 main interactions for this digital installation. 1. Trigger SFX when stepping on the water lilies pad 2. Water ripples follow the user's movement 3. Gather flowers around when the user walks in a slow & calm state 4. Fish swim toward the user when users walk calmly while swimming in random directions when users walk at a fast pace However, I have managed to demonstrate 3 interactions (highlighted) for this stage of the prototype. Further debugging and fish interaction will be carried on for the next stage. I did not show the outcome of the first interaction (trigger SFX when stepping on the water lilies pad) as I'm still exploring the SFX. However, the interaction is working but the choices of SFX are still working in progress...

Peer Play(2015) Ripple Water Shader - Unity CG/C# Tutorial [Part 1/3]. Youtube. Apr 4. Available at:  LINK I have tried on different tutorials. At last, I have picked on another tutorial as it is more flexible for my further development.  Water ripple effect following the mouse cursor  Spontaneous Simulations  (2022) Can you simulate waves in Unity? Create realistic water effects using wave equation - Unity Tutorial. Youtube. Apr 20. Available at:  LINK The tutorial had taught me how to create the water ripple effect based on some equations for the ripples. The water ripples are pretty smooth, however, the frequency is a bit too fast. Thus, I have added timer to slow down the ripple effect.  The main interaction for the water ripple mainly rely on the function of MousePositionOnTexture(). As long as the code changed for LIDAR detection, it definitely works fine. Water ripple effect following user detection Line 145 is the only code to replace the posit...

Initial Prototype [LIDAR] For the initial prototype, I try with cube following the tutorial. It works fine as it is spawning new cubes following the user's detection. For the following stage, I replace the cube with flowers and add force to the flowers so that it will move randomly after spawning. Technical Challenges I encountered some technical challenges in the following stage. For example, the flowers will overlap with each other when spawning. Thus, I have to add collider on the flowers so that it does not overlap with each other. However, the motion of the flowers seems robotic when colliding with each other. I tried to solve it by animating the collider but the result seems not so relevant yet. Thus, I have to continue to explore further to solve the problem. However, the prototype for lidar detection seems fine as random flowers gather around the user when the user is moving around. Below are some of the videos demonstrating some failures & experimentations that I'v...

I started to prototype for interaction 2 in August by setting up the LIDAR and understanding how lidar works in Unity. At first, I am confused about whether to build the visuals in 2D or 3D. I have tried to model it on Blender by using the axis for the flowers to bloom. Design Development The animation of the flowers could not export to Unity as it uses the axis as the driver to animate the flower. Thus, I have tried to export the flowers and animate them in Unity. The animations of the flowers are only limited to scale and rotation, thus it does not portray the effort of using 3D flowers as the visual can be achieved in 2D form. Unity Shader I also start exploring on shader graph in unity as it is quite new to me. I also apply URP and global volume for the glowing effect.  Reflection The animation and visual still working in progress but looks ok. Of course, there is still room for improvements in the animation. I personally not satisfied with the animation with just rotating and ...

I have encountered multiple challenges when developing the structure for the flower-blooming mechanism. It took me one whole month++ to iterate the design and the whole structure for the flower-blooming mechanism to ensure it is doable for future production.  Design Development Output Arm For my initial design for the output arm, it is just a stick. My thought on the structure is by attaching the wires on the petals and wire around the output arm. However, it is not doable enough as it will be very troublesome for future mass production. Thus, I was advised to create a clamp for the output arm to increase the stability of the overall structure. At first, I don't get the idea. I just extruded a triangular shape from the output arm, and it looks horrible and serves no purpose.  I sought help and get some advice from experts on the clamp who specialize in engineering. I also further modified the model on the length and shapes to evaluate the best design for the mechanism. Fo...