THORBJORN THORGEIRSSON

! FABACADEMY 2016 !

A lighthouse sculpture that displays weather data audio/visually

Project Idea Process Workfiles Licence

Project

The project stands today as an lighthouse sculpture that opens its window when humidity goes up. It consists of lasercut housing and window. An DHT11 Temprature/humidity Sensor module signals an Servo Motor module if it should open the window according to measurements. An computer interface Displays the data from the sensor and determines if that data should open or close the window or if it should be done manualy by pressing buttons on in the interface. Here is the presentation video

Idea

I would like to make a windpipe organ that takes weather data as input and plays notes according to barrometric pressure. That organ will be wrapped inside a lighthouse sculpture.

Initialy I was thinking about making a instrument like an organ or a harmonium but I was thinking of an input alternative to a keyboard and found this:

My mind shifted to weather elements, could a barrometer input to a organpipe?
So the idea comes down to a lighthouses-culpture that displays weather audio/visualy, best if it somehow contains an organ. It takes input from the Icelandic Meteorological Office websites api. It could open windows on a dry day. An led could change colors according to sunlight hours, it could tone sound relative to airpressure and have tone volume connected to windspeed, would be nice to display possition of the tide and moon. Temperature? Are lighthousekeepers generally affected by Temperature? Well it could play Major scales on warm days and Minor scales on cold days, or switch between Reggae & blackmetal.
The fact that I dont know how to do any of this is the main reason for me choosing this project

Process

I manage to put together an working prototype of the lighthouse.
an DHT Tempreture/humidity sensor from an input board I made sends data to the computer program I wrote with the Arduino interface.
I made an Servo output board and got that working with the Arduino interface. I could now send it a value and it would move to an location accordingly.
I then forwarded the date from the DHT sensor board onward to the servo module so that diffrent humidity values would move the servo different locations.
I had an hub between the modules that adapted 4 pin headers to 6 pin headers.
I then Made an Interface in Processing that displayed read data from the DHT and added buttons that would overwrite the sensor information and send data down the line. So that I could move the servo to different set locations with the push of a button
The boards were connected with the Serial protocol and when making the interface I had to move the code that signaled the servo to move, between sketches; from the Atmega328 code and into the Processing interface sketch.
I then made an Lighthouse enclosure around the whole thing and an hinged window with edges I could mount my motor on. This window system was just attached with some hot glue for now. The sensor was placed in the top part of the lighthouse and wires led down through a hole to the other boards. I started makin an mounting system for the electronics to package them inside the lighthouse, its meant to become an rack that can hold all different modules, but I didnt get very far sketching it up in Sketchup.
The lighthouse works now as it reads humidity and and opens a window with the servo to 3 possitions, "open" "closed" or "middle" positions depending on the data the servo module receives. This could be usefull to controll humidity inside an green house for an example.
you can read in greater detail about how the code works and other information on each modules page as listed here below.

The Lighthouse was lasercut as explaned in Week 3
The Humidity Sensor module was made in Week 11
The Servo motor module was done in Week 13
The boards were networked together during Week 15
An interface was designed in Week 16
An loose estimate on bill of materials can be found in Week 17

workfiles

most Workfiles can be found under the week they were produced in but Code and lasercut files are relinked here

Interface Code Networked Humidity sensor board Code ServoNode Board Code Half lighthouse for lasercutter Other half of lighthouse for lasercutter Lighthouse Sketchup file

Licence

I was to pick a licence for my project. The following is the MIT open source clause: The MIT License (MIT) Copyright (c) 2016 Þorbjörn Þorgeirsson Permission is hereby granted, free of charge, to any person obtaining a copy of this software and associated documentation files (the "Software"), to deal in the Software without restriction, including without limitation the rights to use, copy, modify, merge, publish, distribute, sublicense, and/or sell copies of the Software, and to permit persons to whom the Software is furnished to do so, subject to the following conditions: The above copyright notice and this permission notice shall be included in all copies or substantial portions of the Software. THE SOFTWARE IS PROVIDED "AS IS", WITHOUT WARRANTY OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO THE WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTABILITY, FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE AND NONINFRINGEMENT. IN NO EVENT SHALL THE AUTHORS OR COPYRIGHT HOLDERS BE LIABLE FOR ANY CLAIM, DAMAGES OR OTHER LIABILITY, WHETHER IN AN ACTION OF CONTRACT, TORT OR OTHERWISE, ARISING FROM, OUT OF OR IN CONNECTION WITH THE SOFTWARE OR THE USE OR OTHER DEALINGS IN THE SOFTWARE.