Reconstructing the Concept and Finalising the Concept of Smart City Representation

So far, we have the last two sprints done pretty well and we decided to work on the top two of the chosen concept. The first one is ‘The Globe’ concept and the second one is ‘The BuzyUni’ concept. Each concept has satisfied the aspect which has interaction aspect with the users and attracting the user’s attention by giving them the sign of light. However, both of these installations are having one big obstacle if we are really wanting to install it in a public place. Because both of the installations need a good amount of lights, then installing both of those will be such a waste of time, energy and resources if we keep on forcing these to be happen.

Figure 3.1 The Globe Installation is hard to be seen during the day

In this occasion, mitigation step is necessary to be executed in terms of the actual lighting condition during the day. What our tutor and lecturer would suggest us is to create something that is big enough to get total attention from people in surroundings and giving people with something that has motion and kind of reality of human being or any organism when they are interacting with it. After my group did some intense conversation and issue in building a modification of the current concept, then we are finally decided to change the concept as a whole. We found something interesting based on our tutor’s and lecturer’s insight about something related to living thing and big enough to get people’s attention. We found this picture in a website that might be really interesting.

Figure 3.2 Inspiration of 'The Tree of Life' Installation

Figure 3.3 Sketch of 'The Tree of Life' Concept

We have been analyzing the environment of a university that similar with factory. A university is always dynamic and producing many talented fresh graduates, that is why we decided to combine a natural environment with the busy factory to make something unique and eye-catching to most people in order to attract attention within the surroundings.

Moreover, we have another interesting concept which quiet more related to a natural environment compare to the previous concept. We are inspired by a picture of a piece technology which that has no relationship with it, but the shape is strongly-related to the nature.

Figure 3.4 Inspiration of 'The Amoeba' Installation

Figure 3.5 Sketch of 'The Amoeba' Concept

These shapes are related to an amoeba. This creature has random shapes and could be twice bigger than the previous stage of its growth period.

Once we found these concepts interesting for us, now it is the time for us to deepening our understanding with the current concept and implement its functionality at once.

For the Steampunk Tree concept, we decided to name it ‘The Tree of Life’ which represents the life at University in producing top global fresh graduates and ‘The Amoeba’ which represents the density of a place that could help the amoeba growing bigger and bigger. ‘The Tree of Life’ concept is offering an information for us through the movement of the cog which has a certain speed based on the occupancy of a certain places from the data received from UQ’s access points. People would not know what the cog means until the user touch the apple fruit hanged within the tree branches. The touch from the user will initiate the motion from an interconnected branch to the apple to display number of people who have signed themselves in that place.

Figure 3.6 Final Design of 'The Tree of Life' Installation

Figure 3.7 Standard Operating Procedure of 'The Tree of Life' Installation

For “The Amoeba” concept, it has more basic functionality compare to ‘The Tree of Life’ concept. It has random movements from the Linear Actuator behind the cloth and it has been given a vibrator to imitate the heartbeat of an organism. In order for them to see the detail of the information from ‘The Amoeba’ installation, the users need to pick up their phone and head their camera towards the printed fiducial barcode. It will be located on the top of the amoeba and it will gives full information translation from what ‘The Amoeba’ has represented.

Figure 3.6 Final Design of 'The Amoeba' Installation 

Figure 3.9 Standard Operating Procedure of 'The Amoeba' Installation

Once we have documented all of these concepts into our workbook, then it has to be presented to some of UQ’s design experts. The purpose of the showcase is to get some deep feedbacks from those experts so that the installation will not misdirected. In this occasion, we are not only presenting them with pictures and sketches, we need to make a prototype of it to give our experts a visual of our planned prototype. At the moment, we create the prototype with the exist resources by modifying cardboard, cloth, elastic wood and papers to make the whole installation prototype.

Figure 3.10 Detailing the Installation

Figure 3.11 Creating the Prototype of the Installations

Figure 3.12 Building 'The Amoeba' Installation

Figure 3.13 Final Result of 'The Tree of Life' Prototype

Figure 3.14 Final Result of 'The Amoeba' Installation

Figure 3.15 Fiducial Interaction of 'The Amoeba' Prototype

Figure 3.16 The Presentation Day

Figure 3.17 The Feedback from the Design Experts

The Experts have a really good contribution in giving us some critical feedbacks to make our installation looks fantastic. In summary, we have been given with three important feedbacks in terms of cogs relationship to the tree, the life aspect of the amoeba and the contraction and reduction of the amoeba itself.

Finally, we move on to the last day of the week to do some finalizing concept. We sent the final design of the tree and the professional architect workshop laboratorian helped us in cutting down 2 pieces of wood into a human being size of an artificial tree. After that, we moved on to ‘The Amoeba’ concept by discussing the most decent design of the installation. Somehow there were several revisions of it to make it simpler and easier to be built instead of creating an installation with some random movements without having any knowledge and idea on how to make it. Out tutor came up with the better solution in building static installation and put some linear actuators and vibrators to represent the living environment inside of it. When it was done, our tutor held a small excursion to a Garbage Workshop company to find some used items that could possibly be installed for its functionality. We found several parts and interesting frames that will be well-fitted into ‘The Amoeba’ installation.

Figure 3.18 Redesigning 'The Amoeba' Installation

Figure 3.19 Detailing of 'The Tree of Life' Installation

Figure 3.20 Class Excursion on Garbage Workshop

Figure 3.21 Final Result of 'The Tree of Life' Cutting Process

Next week, we will be working on the final step on this installation. We will giving those installations Arduino micro controller to represent data from the UQ’s access point and also as a motor for the linear actuator.