thinking in pictures

i guess it's a consequence of being visual, as well as having the experience of travelling down dead-end paths because of poor planning, i always find there's an advantage in sketching out the ideas.

so, day 5, we're going to try and give the SWAY function a decent go, so we can at least have made every attempt to get 2 motion phases developed for the plants.

we'll give it our best shot and see what we can make happen. it's requiring a fair bit of pulley action, and motor activity, so hopefully we can keep all that hidden and quiet.

i think this is now hitting the mark in terms of 'the condition of the plants creating their behaviour'. way way back at the outline of the project my thoughts were that the plants would create their own light shows, their own symphonic choirs, based purely on the data of their conditions (light, temperature, voltage, motion) so this feels like it is matching that intention now.

self-directed internal network entertainment

more thinking through the issue, after some weird dreams during the night (a consequence of this focused lab intensity, no doubt):

the original concept of the project was for a network of plants to exhibit behaviours that are directed by their own condition.

at this stage of the medialab sprint we've pared down to the behaviour being movement. but we've yet to lock on to a suitable set of, or singular, condition. what i was thinking, apparently while i was sleeping, that the behaviours don't need, necessarily, a TRIGGER. the behaviours are merely reflective of CONDITION and this can be described by the actual steady states of the plants, without stimulus required at all.

for example: if we monitor the moisture levels of the plants. we could have the plants simply act if the data feed is in a particular range. on day 1 we built a moisture sensor that had a range of 0 - 1023, so we could have it that the plants SHIVER if one of them falls on a figure that's a multiple of 5. and we could have them wave, if one of them falls on a figure that ends in 0. in this way, they are reacting to the condition of their environment, but not being necessarily TRIGGERED by an active event. it allows for their own condition to be the TRIGGER.

and this could then be coupled with other sensor readings so that the collective condition is monitored and even the tiniest fluctuations in temperature, lighting or proximity could be used to elicit behaviours.

shed some light on the situation

ok, so it's important for this medialab project to find its focus and work toward an outcome.

one of the overarching limitations i have, working with plants, and especially working with the behaviours of plants, is that they have such a long-cycle of action. they take hours and hours, if not days and days, to elicit any real discernible actions.

this is totally cool in the grand scheme of things. and even in the very limited time frame of a traditional art exhibition - 3 to 6 weeks, this is also fine. in that scenario i can envisage a project going for that long, that also has a documented record of the show as it goes, which would enable the viewer to see perhaps something like a timelapse history of the plant behaviours. or, the other thing that interests me, is for the occasional plant activities to then set in motion other activities beyond themselves (for example, to have them make trades on the stock exchange).

for this project it's important to produce an outcome at the end and i would like to have a completed work that demonstrates the 'networked behaviours of technologically augmented plant bodies'.

the key is to decide what TRIGGER sets the plants in motion, literally. i have been working toward providing the plants with an ability to move (SHIVER and WAVE) but am yet to decide what it is that makes them do it. the easy answer is to have the proximity of humans do it. but that's been done a lot and isn't really pushing any new ground. for me, i'm most interested to have the plants operate so that they respond to each other. but here again we run up against the problem of their limited action range, and the context of this project being a very short time frame.

in wondering about how to shed some light on the project, and after talking to jesse today, i looked up 'environmental triggers for plants' and it was obvious the importance of light.

let there be light!

this enables the plants to react to fairly common environmental conditions, as varying light levels are easily achieved and often only ever restricted for the benefit of an art display. which means in this case, light levels will be encouraged to be more naturally fluctuating.

additionally it offers the chance for humans, should they wish to prod the plants into action, to shine something on a plant and also participate in affecting the network. they aren't being the sole effector, but they can be a component.

the natural light of the sun is the natural source of energy for the plants, why not let it be the natural source of energy for their newly augmented mobility? and humans, with their clever ways of harnessing energy and producing their own lights, can also participate.

what would be nice too, would be for that to be the trigger of the movement in the plants, and then to allow that movement to then dictate the pattern of behaviour that washes through the network afterwards, such that the network internally coordinates itself as a consequence.

shiver code

also known as SHUDDER code...

missing some of the randomness - will post later.

victoria, the shiver state

ok, so we've tried ways of getting the WAVE state to work and it's proving difficult. we used a 'servo' motor which gave us a really great effect but which is really quite noisy. check out the video below (featuring technical guru and all right nice guy, jesse) -

we made some modifications so that the servo motor stepped up in incremental degrees, rather than zipping all the way up in one direction in one hit and this helped with the noise.

but our problem is also trying to mount 2 different motors to the plant and pot. especially with one pushing the plant (to SHIVER) and one pulling it (to WAVE). this is a mega pity because having the 2 motions was very exciting. but for now we'll strip back down to the original single motion state (SHIVER).

i've refined the SHIVER state with a bit randomness for extra organic flavour.

shiver and wave and collective conditions

so we've been able to play around with the motor so that it can produce two motion effects:
1. SHIVER
2. WAVE

at least for now, hereafter referred to as SHIVER state, and WAVE state.

the SHIVER state is quite fun and pretty much set, using a solenoid producing a rapid piston motion against the base of the plant (protected by some rubber). the WAVE state works ok with the solenoid, but we think maybe using muscle memory wire will create a more organic pulling effect, which results in a more freely swaying plant (rather than the more robotic regularity of the solenoid).

i like this use of 2 states of action because it feels like it starts to increase the complexity of the network. obviously starting in a prototype build phase we're trying to keep things simple and basic, providing a foundation from which to develop. and so far we have:

 - 3 identical plants, as representative of a network
 - motion as the defined behaviour
 - no defined trigger events
 - no pattern for continued network behaviour

already with this new development i can include 2 types of motion into the network, providing options for the plant behaviours.

interestingly, as a project under the theme of 'bodies', these actions are coming across as anthropomorphic, with the shiver state eliciting a sense of discomfort (like a shuddering or cowering effect, aside from the obvious chilly shivering) and a wave state evoking relaxed swaying or attention attracting (look over here!). having these motion options will enable a broader set of patterns to be built up.

also, i'm still trying to work through what the trigger is for the action among the plants. i'm wondering if perhaps i could monitor the collective network by taking a running average of conditions (humidity/temperature/voltage/light), and then if any one member of the network falls above/below the running average by a certain factor (say, 10%), then that is the plant that becomes the 'control' plant that triggers the others. this could also define which type of motion is elicited.

sketching out the idea of a running group average above. the more plants the better for this network, and i'm still toying with whether it is exclusively one type of plant, or many. (again, these go beyond the prototype stage, but are just ways of thinking through the options).

there's holes in this theory - the biggest being how to bring the 'control' plant back into equilibrium.

pulsating plants

success!

we've just built a prototype motor that we can use to trigger the motion of a plant. there's some refinement now required, and some customisation to allow its attachment to the plant, but it's a great step.

some technical wizadry above from jesse - i'm following along to the best of ability, learning about earthed cables, running voltage converters to change 240v down to 12v, using potentiometers to allow variations in the conditions etc etc ... some of it's sticking into my head ... some is still gobble-dee-gook ... but it's pretty awesome fun! those knobs at the bottom right, one adjusts the pause time between each pulse, the other adjusts the length of the pulse.

here's the coding we wrote - well, jesse dictated and explained each line to me, and i typed it into the software (arduino) -

and here's the very first Plant Motor we've just rigger together - 

shaking it up

laying out the next steps - which consist of identifying the correct type of solenoid/actuators to attach, how to attach them and how to hide them, and how to make them function quietly and when we want them to (by setting the conditions with which they can behave without any human input).

this second image is from jesse - explaining out the process for networking the plants together, so that they can both talk to each other, and hear from each other. this can be run through the same communication line (a connection point in the arduino board can work for input and for output). so i can have one plant move, which it then tells the other plants 'hey guys, i'm moving', and they can all hear that and decide if/when they should also move.

again, jesse's tech drawing explanation for my novice little mind.

twitchy plants

have to find ways to stop the ticky noise of the actuator (that's the little motor-like machine that works kinda like a piston, pushing a pin in and out of a barrel. it's that pin we've got pushing against the plant).

more sketches

this last sketch is thinking out an idea about how to make a network of plants behave collectively, and to keep 'behaving' but also allowing them a chance to rest, or to achieve a resting state.

the general plan now is that one plant starts the process (a variety of trigger options are being considered including high or low temperature, lack of water, even presence of a human) and causes the rest of the network to twitch. then, the last plant to stop swaying and come to rest, is the plant that causes the rest of the network to twitch. and then, again, the last one to come to rest, is the one that causes the rest of the network to twitch.... and so on and so on. this way the plants are always twitching, and they set the conditions of the pattern of behaviour.

there'll need to be a resting point though, so they don't go on twitching 24/7.