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I worked on the Robot Flower Garden as part of the Distributed Robotics Lab at MIT CSAIL during the summer of 2015.
The robot garden is a collection of lighted, moving flowers that are modular and interconnected. It was designed to be used as an educational tool to physically and visually demonstrate programming algorithms like depth-first search, breadth-first search, and coloring. The garden is controlled with a tablet, and features can be adapted for different age and still-levels. For instance, a first-grader can control individual flower movements and colors by clicking on the tablet, or a high-schooler learning to code can experiment with programming their own commands.
My role in the project was to design and prototype the mechanical and electrical components of the flower "tiles." In particular, I:
The robot garden is a collection of lighted, moving flowers that are modular and interconnected. It was designed to be used as an educational tool to physically and visually demonstrate programming algorithms like depth-first search, breadth-first search, and coloring. The garden is controlled with a tablet, and features can be adapted for different age and still-levels. For instance, a first-grader can control individual flower movements and colors by clicking on the tablet, or a high-schooler learning to code can experiment with programming their own commands.
My role in the project was to design and prototype the mechanical and electrical components of the flower "tiles." In particular, I:
- Designed CAD models of several possible flower tile configurations (e.g., squares versus hexagons) to help the team visualize options
- Devised a system of servos and cables within a suspension spring to control flower stem and petal movements
- Used magnets and guide pins to design self-locating and self-attaching surfaces that are intuitive and safe for young children
- Incorporated spring pins into electrical connections between modules so that multiple flowers could be controlled, coordinated, and powered by a single Arduino without the need for cables
- Produced detailed fabrication and assembly drawings and documentation