Perpetuum Domus

In our childhood we were impressed by story about Baba Yaga, who lived in chicken-legged hut.

Unfortunately, when we grew up, fairy tales left out of our lives. We ceased to believe in miracle. We want bring back forgotten emotions, through implementing the idea of magic moving house.

Idea

The project is based on a plot of Russian fairy tales

about Baba Yaga, an old woman who lives in a hut on chicken legs. A special feature of the hut is the ability to run, jump and most importantly, respond to human commands.

The most famous phrase associated with Baba Yaga's hut is: "Hut, hut, turn your front to me, and turn your back to the forest." Having head this phrase from a fairy-tale hero, whether Ivan Tsarevich or Baba Yaga, hut started turning its front to the hero, where there is the entrance.

Nowadays, in the times of modern technologies and new materials finally became possible to bring the tale to life in the project "Perpetuum Domus".

Our project is a contemporary house on a "leg". It is able to interact with a person by various sensors. The result of interaction is rotation of the house around its axis to the direction of a person. This opens a various field of ways for interaction between a person and the house.

There is a set of situations in which this system could be useful.

------>"Protection from the strangers". Hut turns with its entrance to the master of the house, but does not allow to enter strangers.

------>"Variability of views". The Hut turnes to the sides of the world depending on the person's needs - solar or shadow side, or if you like to look at the moon shall turn after her.

Interactivity.

------>Audio channel.(Was implemented)

Hut turns In response to the volume of the voice, to the side where is the loudest voice. Tracking the location of voice in the space, the house rotates in the direction of the speaking person. Hut is also capable to recognize voice commands, for example, for the lighting control.

------>Optical perception channel. (Prospective)

It allows you to identify the person. Hut is capable to recognize the brightness of the light, turning to a flashlight or to the sun. Also, through this channel is implemented gesture control.

------>Pressure / weight canal. (Prospective)

Implemented through the tensor-sensor system. It measures a person's weight, determines the number of people in front of the hut. The system allows to carry out the interface between human and hut in a specific sequence of steps.

When it will be implemented Perpetuum Domus could become a guest house in a thematic park as well as interactive art object.

Prototyping

THE MAIN COMPONENTS OF THE HUT:

-------> Rotation mechanism

------->Interface (software)

------->Construction

-------> Design

MATERIALES USED FOR THE MOKE UP:

-plywood (gears, walls)

-plastic PLA ( stair and leg were printed by 3d printer)

-transparent acrylic plastic (walls)

-different tools and hardware

MACHINES

- Leg and stair by 3D-printer MaketBot Replicator Dual

-Laser cutting by StepDir Laser 100W

ROTATION MECHANISM

Rotation mechanism is implemented with the motor and gears.The main gear is fixed on a stationary support (the leg), through the bearing this gear connects with the floor of the hut. The engine is mounted into the floor. Power of the motor is 12 volts. Centering axis was used for combining this mechanism together.

INTERFACE

In the prototyping stage we decided to limit interactivity of the house with the audio interface.

The interface consists of Intel Galilleo board,which governs the motor, n coder, Hall's sensor,voice module Easy VR2.0.

The scenario of Interaction between user and the moke up :

The hut rotates because of module Easy VR 2.0, which has the microphone and commands which was wrote down by programmer. It reacts only on them.

CONSTRACTION

We used the groove system and screws for connection all parts together.

DESIGN

From architectural point of view a style of the hut is close to postmodernism with elements of old Russian woodcarving.

Mechanism of Rotation

The construction of the model is fixed on the central axis which is passing through the center of the house and extending into the support on the frame rests on a thrust bearing. It lies between the main gear and the base frame.

The basis of the rotary mechanism is the large static gear which was fixed on the basis (leg) through the intermediate gear (5 times smaller than the largest). Gear shift mechanism is connected to the engine and gears of the manual control mechanism, which open onto the facade of the hut due to the angular gear.

The engine is equipped with a rotor that allows to connect directly a rotation mechanism, ease of manual control is achieved through the transmission gears on the facade.The hut rotates with a DC motor at 12 volts.

We used InkScape, CoralDraw, AutoCad and 3ds MAX to draw structure of the hut in vector form. Previews obtained were cut with a laser. The calculation of gear mechanism was made via

http://woodgears.ca/gear_cutting/template.html site.

Gear previews were edited in the vector editor and produced on a laser machine. Pillow block bearings were mounted in the mechanism and it was connected with the motor plus Intel Gallileo and N-coder.