sPhere

Joël Gähwiler

Titel	sPhere
Untertitel	Inspired by the robot in the new Star Wars movie I tried to build something similar. sPhere is a robot who acts like a hamster in a ball. It rolls around controlled over shiftr.io by an input of your choice.  The wooden cage around the Arduino Yun and the other electronic parts enables the robot to roll forward and backward and even overcome small obstacles.
Autor/in	Joël Gähwiler
Datierung	2016
Beschreibung	At the beginning of the module Physical Computing we had the opportunity to experiment with a lot of electronic parts and some Arduino boards. That was very helpful for my final prototype. This way I knew the possibilities and also the limits of this technology. And I had enough time to get comfortable with the programming language of Arduino.  For the final prototype we should either build an output or an input device. Later we would connect them over the internet so that every input could control every output. I got assigned to build an output device. After some brainstorming I had this idea of a mechanical rat race or in other words a robotic ball that can roll around. I did some research on the internet and got a few ideas how I could build something like that.  Because the dimension of the object was limited to 15x15x15 cm it was essential to plan very precisely. First I started with some sketches but soon I moved on to a CAD program and Illustrator. In the end those exact plans allowed me to build my prototype without any big troubles. The only trouble was time. With a bit more time I also would have been able to integrate the direction control. But even without that I am pretty happy with the result.
Schlüsselwörter	Physical Computing
Kunstgattung / Disziplin	Design