Eric Harman: Long Awaited Task 4 Recap

Team Bonding(Finally!)

Objectives

This exercise prompts you to propose, develop, deconstruct and implement an idea based on the principles of an interactive, heliotropic smartsurface. The smartsurface concept should constitute a set of functionalities that otherwise exist in 3-dimensional space, collapsed into an ostensibly 2-dimensional space, thereby gaining additional functionality and/or appeal.

This exercise is intended to get you thinking about the scalability of your ideas and feasibility of their implementation. The brainstorming you do should be more structured, with the objective of developing enough ideas and potential pathways to pursue in the following two weeks. You should produce something that is either a tangible prototype, or a very clear indication (with detailed drawings, diagrams, perhaps computer models) of what you will be building in the ensuing two weeks

You should restrict your work to the tools and approaches covered in class thus far. This exercise values creativity in the face of constraints.

Results

This was the most difficult two weeks of the semester thus far- Our group did not work well together and a great deal of our time was spent resolving "misunderstandings". Nonetheless, in the last 48 hours we pulled ourselves together, set our differences aside and managed to produce a functioning prototype to was quite successful. I was honestly surprised, early on I had doubts that we would be able to produce anything.

The fruits of our labor were made all the sweeter by our difficulties.

The result was the creation of a surface that circulates a fluid to heat or cool an internal environment. Arguably, this has already been done by solar water heaters. Our idea is novel in its execution: To create a changing and dynamic skin, perhaps as an architectural facade, that can react by circulating fluid though a hive-like arrangement of bubbles. One possible scenario is illustrated as:

Pre-Dawn: the facade is in its empty state with the matrix deflated

Daytime: Once the outdoor temperature is greater than that of the building the bubbles are inflated. Throughout the day, the fluid within the bubbles gather thermal energy. The Structure of the bubble-facade lends itself to the added benefit of increasing the surface area exposed to sunlight. In this way each individual bubble within the matrix acts as a mini-solar concentrator.

Nighttime: Once the outside temperature falls below that of hte building, the fluid is removed from the Bubble facade and moved into the building, acting as a "thermal battery", storing heat to be distributed as needed throughout the building.

Alternative: This system could be utilized in multiple ways, including inversely to store the cooler temperatures of the night for use as cooling throughout the day-

Self-Critique: The largest personal qualm I had throughout the entire two weeks was that i felt as though we were taking "the long way around". Meaning, I felt that there was a better solution to the problem we sought to answer. Better, like this blog, is a complete matter of perspective' mine being from the standpoint of simplicity, efficiency, as well as efficacy. I think that our group became fascinated with a mechanism then sought to apply it in a positive way. In this way, we doomed ourselves to creating something that addressed nothing, at least, directly speaking.