Interactive Fountain

A semester-long project which I worked in a group of 5 to conceptualize and create an interactive fountain experience for the Western Pennsylvania School for Blind Children.

This project spanned from research into creating interactions for students with disabilities to creating an interface which made each interaction turn on and off a fountain in the school's play yard to manufacturing each individual interaction.

I was responsible for the mechanical design and manufacturing of the interactions for the fish and turtle fountains.

We expect this system to be installed in spring, 2017.

The fountain as it is now. Each of the individual animals is controlled by a solenoid valve in a separate building which can turn each on or off.

Ideation about the possible layouts of the interactions around the fountain. These ranged from one centralized controller to a more distributed system of 4 individual interactions.

System layout of the interactions: Each interaction has a sensor which outputs to an Arduino which is in a waterproof enclose outside. That Arduino then communicates wirelessly via a pair of Xbees to another Arduino inside the building where the valves are located. That second microcontroller then actuates the valves, turning on and off the fountains.

Final Products:

Top left: Swan interaction- inspired by the motion of a swan's wings in flight. The ball triggers magnetic proximity sensors when it is close to the ends of the wire.

Top right: Frog interaction- a weighted ball on the end of a spring with movement similar to a frog jumping. An accelerometer inside the sphere on top senses movement and triggers the actuation of the fountain once the movement has passed a certain threshold.

Bottom left: Turtle interaction- patterned after the hexagonal tiling on a turtle's back, a hexagonal block fits into one of three hexagonal holes and rests on a limit switch. Depending on which switch the block rests on, the fountain will turn on in a different manner.

Bottom right: Fish interaction- Like the flowing movements of a fish, the ball in the center of the interaction spins. As it spins, an encoder registers its movement, thus turning on the fountain. Aluminum pieces inside the ball make a pleasant audible sound as the ball is spinning.