Project Ebb
Moving the tide up and down inside a desktop diorama.
Project Ebb was the name of my Senior Mechanical Engineering capstone project. My team of four mechanical engineers and I partnered with New American Public Art, a local art studio, to design a desktop-sized tidal simulation display that could be synced to mimic the local tide conditions in real time. Our final design featured a concealed peristaltic pump, level sensing system, and fluid reservoir that worked in concert to slowly move the water level between high and low tide.
I was responsible for the structural design of the project- conceptualizing Ebb's structural architecture through hand-sketches, designing the faceted wooden base, and building out the entire CAD database in Fusion 360.
To reach our form factor goals while working within tight volume margins, I also implemented a novel electronics integration scheme that optimized the volume of the concealed reservoir within the base. This design - called the "electronics island" - placed the system's Arduino and sensing electronics inside of a waterproof enclosure on the inside of the reservoir. This strategy maximized the water volume capacity of the hidden reservoir, and thus allowed us to execute our desired tidal change within the upper display.
I also lead the sculptural design and painting of our final artistic "Tidal Landscape". I added rocks and natural terrain to the geometry using the software Blender, then had the model 3D printed. After that, I painted the sculpted features of the model, before installing it in the final product.
I created a variety of colorful graphic assets for our project throughout the semester as well, using Adobe Illustrator. These assets were used for presentations and a social media channel, and can be found here.
The result of our efforts was a functional, enchanting tidal display that consistently raised and lowered the tide level on a regulated cycle, and fully concealed the interior functional elements from an outside observer. The prototype was delivered to NAPA in December 2020.
With Michael Komatz, David Myers, Niklas Deloff, and Aidan Curry.