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  • Behnaz Babazadeh 4:10 am on May 16, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Fermid | Kinetic Sculpture 

    Fermid is a kinetic sculpture that uses technology and parametric design principles to explore the natural movement that can be found in living organisms and its relation to human perception.

    I am interested in the relation between movement and space. With Fermid I hope to portray an artistic representation of the natural kinesthesia that can be found in living organisms and how it relates to human perception of body and space. I was able to achieve a sense of breathing movement through the use of technology and parametric design principles. The resulting movement is seducing and engaging to a viewer.

    Final Thesis Paper PDF

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 11:06 pm on May 5, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Fermid Update 

    May 5th Presentation

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 8:29 pm on April 21, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Fermid 

    Mini Thesis presentation of my current concept Fermid. An interactive kinetic sculpture that mimics the behavioral changes relating to the emotional reactions of fear.

    http://vimeo.com/22716001

    Fermid (PDF presentation)

    Timeline

    • April 21st – (Practice run) Presentation
    • April 25th – Origami meets Fermid prototype and Outline of paper
    • April 28th – First draft of paper. Finalize video of prototype
    • May 2nd – Continue working on paper. Kickstarter video uploaded.
    • May 5th – Rehearse presentation and Finalize paper
    • May 9th –  Final presentation and paper due
     

    • Behnaz Babazadeh 10:33 pm on April 25, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Where I am now:
      Using parametric design techniques to create an aesthetic that mimics natural forms and geometric shapes. I want to use servo motors and IR sensors to create the gathering effect.

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 5:04 pm on April 14, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    SMAs Research + Applications 

    SMA’s (Shape Memory Alloys) have been around since the 60’s. They are a hybrid of titanium alloy and nickel (NiTi). This composition of the metals gives the alloy an elastic quality that cannot be found with any other metal (composition). The alloys have a remembered state that they revert to after they have been heated (thermo or electric charge), no matter the current shape that the alloy may be in. There are two types of shape memory alloy effects, one-way and two-way. The one-way effect is when the SMA has a single remembered state, usually at the cooled state. The two-way effect is achieved by a cooled state and a heated state. Two-way SMA’s are less successful because they can remember new heated states in the process of use.

    Currently, this technology is used for industrial purposes, such as medical devices, industrial actuators and aerospace engineering. I am interested in the capabilities of memory alloys and the potential for its use in a commercial product application. Below are some examples of these memory alloys being used in either industrial or commercial use. (More …)

     

    • scottpeterman 10:12 pm on April 14, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      Interesting research, and thanks for the demo in class the other day. I wonder if this could be woven into something with one of those machines we saw at stoll? This stuff just feels so weird and magic-y…

    • Alvaro Soto 10:18 pm on April 14, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      This is really cool, I noticed that the allows are being used by designer to evoke emotional behaviors in the products, I think the key is not that they can expand but that they dont need additional tools or elements to function. which is important because you can design things that are very thin or minimal and get the same movement as if you had pair of servo motor.
      The lamp is stunning and clever I would think very carefully the form of your cards so when it grows it makes sense what is growing and how it looks.

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 5:42 pm on April 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Plausibility Tests 

    Today I ran a series of tests to see where the technology might be limited in and/or if it is completely plausible.

    Here I experimented with the possibility of incorporating illustration board into the novelty cards to give shape and structure. The alloy was able to move the pieces, however the shape was a little distorted. I believe I can achieve the right type of interaction with the use of several alloys on each corner.

     

    Part of a series of experimentation of how shape memory alloys react with in the oven and at what temperature. This alloy was placed inside of a conventional oven at 150 degrees. The alloy went from a stretched state at 3 inches to its compressed memory state at 1 inch, all in just one minute in this oven.

     

    Conclusion | I can definitely use shape memory alloys as the technology to change flat shapes into 3 dimensional shapes with in the convenience of a standard home oven.

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 5:05 pm on April 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Interactive Novelty Cards 

    Currently there are absolutely no other paper/novelty products that utilize SMAs (Shape Memory Alloys) technology.

    1) The current trend in smart novelty cards seem to be in soft circuit space of paper craft and conductive inks. Novalia is a company that has been started by Cambridge professor Dr Kate Stone. They create flat circuits on paper to get interactive simple circuit greeting cards. Most of which are simple, push button/ light led. Click Here for the Article.

    2) Here is a video of a neat greeting card hallmark is doing with augmented reality. Hallmark wants to go Hi-Tech!

    3) The standard tech cards that everyone has seen such as pop up cards and musical cards.

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 4:09 pm on April 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Materials Exploration | Symposium 

    Parsons Fashionable Technology Event Series continued on the 31st with a series of lectures and demonstrations from the people in the industry who are doing interesting things in their field relating to fashionable / wearable technology.

    This is a video of my favorite talk at the symposium. I think was was really great to see the variety of different materials out there available that I had never heard about before. You can thank me later for shooting this video 🙂

    Below are some of the interesting things Bare Conductive is up to with their patent non-toxic conductive ink.

     

    Conductive Ink Track Pad

    Conductive Ink Switchs / Potentiometor for outputs of light / sound.

    Conductive Ink Flex Sensor

    According to Matt Johnson from Bare Conductive, this ink will not be available for purchase for quite some time. Huge bummer for some soft circuit friends of mine who would have loved to use this ink for their mini-thesis.

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 4:57 am on April 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Materials Exploration | Workshop 

    Last week I attended the Materials exploration workshop held by the fashionable technology team of Parsons. Here is a link to the fashion tech blog. Below are some interesting materials and facts I discovered over the course of the event.

    Workshop materials included; Woven Optic Fabric, Photo Luminescent Fabric, Photovoltaic Fabric, Heating Fabric, Liquid Crystal Fabric and Anti-Magnetic Fabric.

    The workshop was sort of set up as a game, where each group of students were to pick up a set of cards with constraints listed. My team got

    WHO – With friend
    WHEN – A slow time
    WHERE – In a big city
    WHAT – Photovoltaic

    We came up with several different projects and ideas for using the technology with these set of constraints.

    The idea we followed through with was Dance Dance Beach Blanket. An interactive blanket that can use the solar energy power received from sitting out in the sun all day, getting your tan on like JWOW and The Situation (See image below) and when the sun goes down, the party continues with this networked, dance dance revolution and twister inspired interactive light up game.

    In the end, I think it was a fun way to structure a workshop but it was unfortunate that we got a material that was not available for us to cut up and prototype.

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 9:19 pm on March 31, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Kami | Domain Map 

    Domain Map of Kami (working title) | 2d > 3d Novelty Greeting Cards

    The industry sells over 7 billion greeting cards a year with over 35% coming from pop up/music playing cards alone.  Kami, is the next big thing in the greeting card industry. Imagine receiving a wedding invitation or birthday card that you are instructed to bake in the oven to produce a 3 dimensional invitation. To achieve this, I purpose using SMAs (Shape Memory Alloys) with in the cards to create the transformation from a flat card into the 3d shape.

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 9:04 pm on March 28, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Novelty Greeting Card 

    I am interested in shape memory alloy technology and the potential of using the technology in novelty gifts and/or wearables. Although SMA(Shape Memory Alloys) are commonly used in the fields of medicine and industry, it has the potential to become a more commonly used technology especially in product design. The way the SMAs work is that they have a memory state which can be set through a rigorous process set by the weight and model of SMA. Once the shape is set, you can deform and misshape the SMA and by applying some heat or current of electricity, the alloys return back to the remembered state. The alloys are made with titanium metals and are stronger than you can image, however it does not do well with too much resistance multiple times because it can remember the new shape, the alternative shape while it is hot. After some experimentation, I think it is possible to get really good results with this technology and creating novelty greeting cards or gifts.

     

    • Behnaz Babazadeh 10:16 pm on March 28, 2011 Permalink | Reply

      One of the issues I had was getting my hand on some memory alloys, I had done some tutorial videos with a friend in another class but to order some of my own was difficult to find out where from. I think secondly I was having a difficult time thinking up alternative roles for these greeting cards. I am kind of stuck on the cake in the oven, but I hope I can figure something else out.

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 9:30 pm on March 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Mini-Thesis Concept Ideation 

    minithesis

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 12:29 am on March 22, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Visualizing Data over the break 

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 6:28 pm on March 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Visualizing Data in Processing 

    From the last chapter of Getting started with Processing .

    Click on the image above to see the animated gif of the different color / alpha values I played with.

    (More …)

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 6:27 pm on March 9, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Cigar box Fail. 

    Our group project, Oylum and I were interested in a pocket companion with a solid functional aspect to it. We settled on a cigarette box that would either encourages or discourages smoking. The concept will work with an LCD screen to output a “tamagotchi” character that will keep track of how often you have smoked with the use of a photocell sensor. The screen will also output messages as they pertain to time. There is also a speaker to output emotional sounds so that the user feels the character through the digital interface.

    Used the LCD code provided to prepare the lcd for the project. Then we combined previous piezo code and photocell. Unfortunately, last night I was so excited about finishing rewiring that  Code to be posted soon.

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 1:37 am on March 7, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Bathroom Occupancy Monitor 

    My roommate is always frustrated with the rest of us making it into the bathroom before she does. Here is a remote bathroom occupancy system that can keep her in bed and happy. By utilizing the romantic light sensor workshop from last week, I was able to achieve the wireless communication between my two Xbees. The router is in a soup container placed inside of the bathroom and the coordinator is in a box by her bed side with two icon lights that allow her to know if the person has left, is only using for 5 min or for longer (taking a shower).

    (More …)

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 9:36 pm on March 3, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Simon Package Delivery System 

    Look & Feel Presentation

    SIMON

     (More ...)
     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 11:23 pm on February 24, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    XBEE WIRELESS 

    SETTING UP A WIRELESS NETWORK WITH TWO XBEES

    X-CTU

    http://www.digi.com/support/kbase/kbaseresultdetl.jsp?kb=125

    COOLTERM

    http://download.cnet.com/CoolTerm/3000-2383_4-10915190.html

    1) DOWNLOAD X-CTU ON A WINDOWS OPERATING SYSTEM

    2) MAKE SURE THAT YOUR DEVICE MANAGER RECOGNIZES YOUR USB AS A COM DRIVER

    3) OPEN X-CTU AND MAKE SURE THAT THE COM DRIVER IS VISIBLE IN THE COM PORT WINDOW

    4) SELECT MODEM CONFIGURATION

    5) IDENTIFY WHICH X-BEE WILL ACT AS A ROUTER AT AND WHICH WILL BE A COORDINATOR AT (WRITE DOWN THE LAST LINE OF NUMBERS FROM THE BACK OF EACH XBEE )

    6) NOW IN MODEM CONFIGURATION, SELECT THE APPROPRIATE SETTINGS AND CLICK ON WRITE BUTTON

    • COORDINATOR AT (XB24-ZB  |  ZIGBEE COORDINATOR AT | HIGHEST VERSION NUMBER)
    • ROUTER AT (XB24-ZB | ZIGBEE ROUTER AT | HIGHEST VERSION NUMBER)

    7) NOW MOVE INTO TERMINAL PROGRAM SUCH AS COOLTERM, IF YOUR IN WINDOWS AND USING X-CTU, YOU CAN STAY IN THERE JUST CLICK ON THE TERMINAL TAB.

    8 ) OPTIONS -> LOCAL ECHO (TOO BE ABLE TO SEE WHAT YOUR DOING)

    9) PRESS +++ … DO NOT CLICK ENTER OR DELETE AFTER, SHOULD RESPOND WITH AN OK

    10) TYPE ATID + CLICK ENTER (RESPONDS WITH 0)

    11) TYPE ATID####   (#### – IS A PAN ID OF YOUR OWN NETWORK, RANDOM (0 – FFFF)) + CLICK ENTER

    12) TYPE ATDH 0013A200 +CLICK ENTER

    13) ATDL ########(THE LAST ROW OF NUMBERS ON THE OPPOSITE XBEE)

    BEHNAZ – BABA

    LEE  – E110

    VICTOR – a36a

    ALVARO – 1911

    LEIF – 928

    THOM – 3737

    CHRIS – DDB

    SCOTT -F2D2

    MINHO -1980

    HILAL – 1297

    OYLUM – 0308

    BREE – 3233

    ANDY – AA42

    YURY – ABBA

    14) IF YOU HAVE RECEIVED AN OK AFTER EVERY ENTR, ENTER ATWR (SAVE) + ENTER

    Here is what your session will look like:

    +++OK

    atid#### OK

    atdh 0013a300 OK

    atdl(opposite xbee) OK

    atwr OK

    15) IF YOU ARE HAVING TROUBLE, YOU CAN TROUBLE SHOOT BY REFERENCING BUILDING WIRELESS SENSOR NETWORKS CHAPTERS 1+2

    GOOD LUCK!

     

  • Behnaz Babazadeh 8:04 pm on February 17, 2011 Permalink | Reply  

    Toy Fair 2011 

     

    Unfortunately, I was so distracted by all of the goods that I didn’t get to capture a few other cool toys, but I am sure they will make it on to the blog with everyone else’s posts.

    As you can imagine, I was excited to see a led ring 🙂 Although it was not as a great as the one I made last semester, it was still fun to see that the commercial industry is doing it.

    The kuzebot was neat, plush robots that are attached to a cause.

     

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