Courtesy of NYU's Laguardia studio, I was scanned using the Artec Eva, a museum-grade 3D scanner. I imported the generated .obj file into Blender, where I extruded the form so that it could be 3D printed. The Ultimaker 2+ took 37 hours to complete the entire print.

Rainbow Waterfall

The Rainbow Waterfall is an interactive sculpture that incorporates LED strips, solenoid valves, lasers, photo resistors and water that are all controlled by an Arduino board. Inspired by the Rain Room by rAndom International, the viewer is invited to risk their hand to the rain inside the sculpture, thus interfering with the laser path which would cause the solenoid valve to close and cease the waterfall coming from above. 

CoffeeBot

I typically have problems waking up to my own alarms, consistently pressing the snooze button on my 7 different alarms that I've set in 15 minute intervals. With each refusal to get up, another dream occurs, another story ensues, the more I'm invested in my unconsciousness, the later I may be to the reality of class or work. It's a terrible habit that I can't kick. 

Then I thought, "Hm, what if I made a coffee bot where the scent of freshly dripped coffee would be enough motivation to get out of bed, with the caffeine actually keeping me out of bed?" There are well designed models out there on the market, but at a considerable price. As pretty as they may be, you would still have to preset the coffee grounds and water before the alarm. I wanted to make my coffeebot fully automated - an organized system of robot arms and / or valves that would dispense water into the reservoir, scoop coffee grounds into the filter, and turn the coffee machine on as soon as it finished. 

The focus of my work for this project was mostly about precise servo motor positions that would: gently scoop the grounds, even itself out, slowly rotate the measuring spoon over the coffee filter, and tap / shake the grounds out of the spoon. After two for-loops (or two servings), the arm would tilt down and use its "backhand" to close the filter, followed by sending voltage to the solenoid to push the power button on the coffee machine. With weaker solenoids, I was unable to have the machine turn on via the solenoid push, and knew that the solenoid I would set up to release water would experience the same issue.