"The natural state of "
-- Wax Assembly & Augmented Robot concept
A fabrication technique that is to build a series of end-effectors to hook up with the KUKA Agilus robots that can be controlled by real-time sensing using HTC Vive to achieve human-machine interaction and TelePresence process.
"The natural state of..."
-- Wax Assembly & Augmented Robot concept
Project TelePresence with Real-time Control End-Effector Design
Teammate Alisha Coelho, Teng Long, Taira Tsukioka, and Tyson Keen Philips.
My Role Interaction Design, End effector Design, Simulate AR/VR scenarios in Unity, create diagrams.
Software Autodesk Maya, Rhinoceros, Grasshopper, 3ds Max, V-ray, Zbrush, Unity 3D, Keyshot, Adobe Photoshop, Illustrator, After Effect
Instructor Guvenc Ozel, Benjamin Ennemoser & Mertcan Buyuksandalyac
Location Los Angeles, California, US
Honor Architectural and Design Museum, Los Angeles
"Symposium" Exhibition, Los Angeles
This project during my master degree aims to develop various fabrication techniques through human-machine interaction and TelePresence. Our target is to build a series of end-effectors to hook up with the KUKA Agilus robots that can be controlled by real-time sensing using HTC Vive. We focused on robotic fabrication by fusing telepresence, cyber-physical systems, and virtual & augmented reality. The TelePresence technology is an extension of robotic fabrication and monitored with an augmented reality interface as a feedback system.
For more background information: TelePresence: Virtual Reality in the Real World - Microsoft
Presentation Equipment:
Problem Statement
(Two main given categories are Subtraction/Dissolving and Addition/Aggregation. )
Our goal was to utilize wax for assembly purposes. The prompt of wax assembly (as opposed to subtraction) led us to explore the unique qualities of wax as it changes from a liquid state to a solid state at room temperature. This transformational quality drove us to try to discover certain evolutionary formal systems inherent in wax as a product of biological lifeforms. Prior to the actual design, we started to propose some questions along with our development process.
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Is there a material order or an entropic tendency?
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Does the wax drive itself toward a certain structural state?
These problems drove us to design a method of repeatedly dipping an object into wax and studying the natural patterns reflected in the material such as viscosity and state change.
Material Behavior
In nature, the slightest alteration in the environment of the growing object can have exponential effects on its formal logic. This is the nature of evolution and can be seen in everything ranging from trees to canyons to tsunamis.
Team Development
Wax dipping is a slow building process (an 18-inch structure took an entire day to complete), but it’s considered rapid compared to similar natural structural formations such as the rocky spikes seen in caves.
We saw this as an opportunity to scale time and rapidly prototype this more continental phenomenon.
We wanted to capitalize on this natural order to both impose control AND introduce chaotic elements into the material.
This allows us to explore uncertainty, making decisions by experimentation and learning, to gauge how many levels of human intervention can affect the final deliverables.
By repeated dipping and pulling the base plate into the melted wax pool, the wax hardens onto the base plate. It can have several bumps/attraction points to arrange alignment of "wax icicles". The temperature of melted wax control the length/diameter of wax buildup, thus the system has a thermometer and heats until the wax temperature reaches a settled temperature. The operation would take up to 30 min to create a 1-foot icicle with a pre-defined arrangement. Many of the other inputs can be controlled intuitively with our specifically designed AR interface.
Viscosity Diagram
In our design, the KUKA robot attempts to use the rapid state change in wax to build a 12” x 12” x 24” column with a logical vertical structure. It begins heavy at the base, which builds up to a thinner column array where elements can grow independent of one another at the same rate. Midway through the build, the actor is allowed to intercept the process with many environmental interventions in an attempt to push the wax formation into a new topological structure. The resultant form is not prescribed, but it can be discovered through evaluation of the process. The environmental variables that the actor is allowed to control are gravity, air flow (direction, proximity, speed), and the initial material temperature inside the tank.
End-effector Design
(The actual End-effector is 3D printed.)
Here is the system we developed to accomplish these changes with telepresence.
One of my team members would be standing there wearing the VR headset and have HTC Vive controller in both hands.
The actor’s eyes are controlled by the rotation of his head, and air pump is controlled by the HTC Vive controller in his right hand.
These two have been integrated mechanically to visually extract the detail of the air intervention.
Simultaneously, the left hand rotates the wax object like a potter’s wheel, shifting the effect of gravity on the cooling wax at will.
A thermometer is linked to a hot plate under the wax tank that maintains an internal wax temperature coded freely by the user.
Interconnected Action Diagram
We took the interface as an opportunity to give the human maximum control over the actions so that they could be documented and be adjusted with iterations and compared to the final product.
You can see the locations of the air pump and the rotation of the wax object under constant visual monitoring.
Live Demonstration
Diagram of Wax Drips/Branching
With variable wax temperature, you control the viscosity of the liquid, allowing growth to slow or speed up along the surfaces that contact the wax. The resultant formation change is a variable thickness in the wax column.
The air flow and gravity shift caused more significant topological shifts. Their effect is exponential, multiplying and combining to completely alter the pattern of the form. We found “merging” and “branching” was the best fit to describe these more dynamic results.
Percentage of human intervention
Speculative Models
Two images below indicate the hypothetical divination of an entropic state of a certain set of material in an arbitral arrangement. An interest in the entropic state of a singular material led this experiment to be implemented. We specifically designed an end effector to operate a base plate which creates cascading pattern by contacting surface of the melted wax. Next, a robot arm with an air blower demonstrates human intervention in order to examine the following shape which wax will take in the later process.
You can see the results of our experiments here, ranging from tightly controlled to completely chaotic. These two are the most recent models, one done entirely by hand, and one done with the KUKA through telepresence. I challenge you to determine which is which.
