Concept
The concept of Esca was to create an interactive coral flower orgami that would mimic the predator behavior of a deep sea angler fish. Angler fish use their esca (growth lying above its head) to attract and lure their prey by illuminating their esca to draw attention. When they sense that a pray near by they will start to flash their esca in different patterns in order to draw more attention. Once the prey is in range it will quickly down on its prey, immediately killing it. I wanted to copy these actions by having a light emitting flower that replicates this
Aesthetics
I wanted to crate an origami that would draw the participants attention to the center of it so I chose a coral flower to achieve this. It has an intriguing fractal pattern which draws towards the center which helps in pulling attention towards the LED's illuminating in the center; the use of red and yellow also enhanced this. I chose origami paper for this because it was the most versatile in making complicated folds and also being quite flexible. White paper was to help improve the lighting of the LED's. The base of the project was black so it wouldn't draw any attention away from the origami.
Interaction
The interaction aspect of this project comes from the use of an ultrasonic sensor which reads the distance of the participants hands. It is clearly just in front of the origami so that as the user places there hand over the flower. This is so so that the user gets the idea that their hand is acting like the prey. As the hand draws closer to the sensor, pulsating LED's located at the center of the origami flower will begin to pulsate faster and faster. This faster pulsating mimics the way angler fish lure there prey.The sensor measures the distance of your hand relative to the sensor and then changes the rate at which the LED's turn on and off.
Video showing the pulsating behavior of the the coral flower origami. As your hand draws closer to the flower, the pulsation increases to replicate how an angler fish lures its prey.
Difficulties and Room for Improvement
The most difficult aspect of this project occurred while creating the original version of this project. I had planned to use servo motors and strings to have the flower close up once the hand was close enough to the flower. Due to issues with the motor not properly running, I was forced to scratch it from the project. Other issues that arose were problems with readings from the ultrasonic sensor, several LED's dying, and having to re-familiarize myself with the Arduino platform.
Due to the issues I had with my original concept for this project, further iterations would look to incorporate the movement in some way with the flower, as well as reworking the wiring and boxing of the circuit board so that it would be not as bulky. I would also like to improve the consistency of the signal inputs for the ultrasonic sensor.
Parts
Red LED's (7)
Ultrasonic Sensor
Arduino Uno
Wiring
Black foam board
USB
330 K Ohm resistors (7)
Origami Paper (12 Sheets)
Glue
Solder
Code
int led = 9; // the PWM pin the LED is attached to
int brightness = 0; // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5; // how many points to fade the LED by
int trigPin = 13;
int echoPin = 12;
int delayAmount = 1000;
int multiply = 1;
//#define led 11
//#define led2 10
int brightness = 0; // how bright the LED is
int fadeAmount = 5; // how many points to fade the LED by
int trigPin = 13;
int echoPin = 12;
int delayAmount = 1000;
int multiply = 1;
//#define led 11
//#define led2 10
// the setup routine runs once when you press reset:
void setup() {
Serial.begin (9600);
pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);
// declare pin 9 to be an output:
pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
}
void setup() {
Serial.begin (9600);
pinMode(trigPin, OUTPUT);
pinMode(echoPin, INPUT);
// declare pin 9 to be an output:
pinMode(led, OUTPUT);
}
// the loop routine runs over and over again forever:
void loop() {
long duration, distance;
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); // Added this line
delayMicroseconds(2); // Added this line
digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
// delayMicroseconds(1000); - Removed this line
delayMicroseconds(10); // Added this line
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
distance = (duration/2) / 29.1;
void loop() {
long duration, distance;
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW); // Added this line
delayMicroseconds(2); // Added this line
digitalWrite(trigPin, HIGH);
// delayMicroseconds(1000); - Removed this line
delayMicroseconds(10); // Added this line
digitalWrite(trigPin, LOW);
duration = pulseIn(echoPin, HIGH);
distance = (duration/2) / 29.1;
// set the brightness of pin 9:
analogWrite(led, brightness);
analogWrite(led, brightness);
// change the brightness for next time through the loop:
brightness = brightness + fadeAmount * multiply;
brightness = brightness + fadeAmount * multiply;
// reverse the direction of the fading at the ends of the fade:
if (brightness <= 0 || brightness >= 255) {
fadeAmount = -fadeAmount;
}
if (distance > 23){
delayAmount = 30;
multiply= 1;
}
else if (distance > 8){
delayAmount = 6;
multiply= 1;
} else {
delayAmount = 0;
multiply = 3;
}
if (distance >= 200 || distance <= 0){
Serial.println("Out of range");
}
else {
Serial.print(distance);
Serial.println(" cm");
}
if (brightness <= 0 || brightness >= 255) {
fadeAmount = -fadeAmount;
}
if (distance > 23){
delayAmount = 30;
multiply= 1;
}
else if (distance > 8){
delayAmount = 6;
multiply= 1;
} else {
delayAmount = 0;
multiply = 3;
}
if (distance >= 200 || distance <= 0){
Serial.println("Out of range");
}
else {
Serial.print(distance);
Serial.println(" cm");
}
// wait for 30 milliseconds to see the dimming effect
delay(delayAmount);
}
delay(delayAmount);
}
