Project 3

 Project Statement

On Tuesday night, I watched an episode of the anime Jujutsu Kaisen for the first time in a while. Something I really like about this show is that the fight scene animations are very elaborate, bold and exciting. As I watched, I was audibly gasping and flinching with every special move. I thought this would be a cool effect to try and emulate through the emotive object.

One of the characters in this show has a power in which he can summon animal spirits to fight in battle by making a corresponding hand puppet. My plan was to create this effect by making a robot which could “summon” a different animal when an “enemy” got too close. I wanted to have a very abrupt motion that could swing animals in and out of view, so that the viewer is surprised and excited. This way I could replicate some of that feeling I had from watching the show. I decided to use the ultrasonic sensor to detect enemies approaching, and use a servo to swap out the hand signals and the animals. I thought of a sort of pinwheel mechanic to facilitate this. I wanted to move things in the foreground and background to create a 3D scene effect like a diorama.  My code was pretty simple, using much of the sensor and servo code from class. I tried adding a function to the servo class to track the servo’s current position, but I couldn’t fix the bugs in time. Instead, I used a global variable to track the servo’s movement, and only toggled between two states to keep it simple.

Inspiration

Post 1

initial sketches of the mechanism and the background/foreground idea

Post 2

Prototype for the pinwheel. I wanted to avoid more complicated fabrication because I really did not have a lot of time to test and redesign, so I relied very heavily on cardboard, tape, and hot glue.

Post 3

Sizing the rods on the pinwheel

Post 4

   

Demonstration of the sensor and pinwheel movement. The twitching back and forth didn't suit my story idea, so I changed it to only move when the object is initially detected within range. I also tried to make the movement faster to make it more startling.

Reflecting on this project, I really have struggled with time management. I started this project on Wednesday, so I really should have gone with a simpler idea, and then executed to a greater effect and higher skill, rather than choosing a more complicated idea and only demonstrating it halfway.