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Sabine

• Device

My group composed of Michelle Schmid and Marcial Koch created an input device which embodies the energy source „water“ as an abstract and symbolical interpretation for a renewable energy source.

Our input device is a representation of the way hydroelectric power-station create energy. It’s a sandglass where in the middle a turbine is located. The sand symoolizes the water. At the beginning it’s lying on the bottom. As the participant turns the sandglass, the potential energy of the sand turns into kinetic energy due to the force of gravity just like water would.

When the sand falls upon the turbine, it starts rotating and begins to convert the kinetic energy into mechanical energy. Furthermore, the electric energy is transformed into electric current which is symbolized through the blue light.

• Construction

Sabine is a kind of «hourglass» with a turbine in the middle. We created a first prototype and lightly modify it for the final installation. The prototype includes the following parts: two sand containers, two funnel-shaped passage, one infrared sensor, two motor blocks, two Neopixel rings on the supporting crosses and a wheel in the middle.

On the final version, we improved the waterproofness, using 3D print which prevent contact with the outside. We kept just one motor and one Neopixel rings and to avoid a clumsiness we create a support.

• Zauberwald

The „Zauberwald“ takes place in Lenzerheide by the end of December and is suppose to bring around 30‘000 tourists to Lenzerheide to experience nice light installations during the Christmas time.

As a class, we had the opportunity to create and expose a project in the 2018 edition. Our installation is composed of 6 input device and 6 visualization. Each input object embodies one of the three energy sources: water, wind and solar, as an abstract, minimal, symbolical interpretation. The visitors have the possibility to generate "power" by interacting with the objects which represent actual way methods of generating that power in a more simplified fashion.

The 6 different visualizations are projected on a big circular screen in the forest. The visualizations harnesses the data emitted by all the objects and are played one after each other.

• Difficulty

Creating Sabine was a great challenge, due to the weather conditions in Lenzerheide and due to the engineering aspect of our concept. During the constructing, we came across some problems, as for example the necessity of a four funnel-shaped passage, the need to protect the motor, fixing the wheel in a way that she could turn without difficulty and dealing with the sand going through the turbine. We tried to improve them directly but because of the time we also kept them in mind for the final version.