When I went to get my bike to go home on Thursday I caught two faculty members at IAAC experimenting with bio-electricity. The idea is that there are microbes in the soil around the roots of plants that under the right conditions can generate small amount of voltage and current (millivolts and milli or micro amps). They used two carbon fiber cloth electrodes connected to a bolt that led out through the side of the container, one near the top of the container and one near the bottom. They hope to generate enough electricity to run sensors and microcontrollers.
When I went to get my bike from the rack on Thursday I caught two faculty members at IAAC experimenting with bio-electricity. The idea is that there are microbes in the soil around the roots of plants that under the right conditions can generate small amount of voltage and current (millivolts and milli or micro amps).
They used two carbon fiber cloth electrodes connected to a bolt that led out through the side of the container, one near the top of the container and one near the bottom. They hope to generate enough electricity to run sensors and microcontrollers.
I have experimented with natural sources of voltage and current, like the earth's electric field, batteries made from lemons and potatoes and two different electrodes, the thermoelectric effect and the piezoelectric effect.
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@@ -16,7 +18,7 @@ I explored a number of things - 3d printing with clay. molding and casting tempe
## 3d Printing with Clay
To complete the assignment, I used a modified 3d printer to print with clay. IAAC and Eduardo have quite a bit of experience in 3D printing paste materials like clay.
To complete the assignment, I used a modified 3d printer to print with clay. IAAC and Eduardo have extensive experience in 3D printing paste materials like clay.
A Crealty Ender Pro printer was modified to print clay. it was fitted with an industrial pressure tube filled with clay pressurized to about 3 bar with air. You can print anything that can be made into a paste with this tube. The tube pushes material into a feed screw nozzle that pushes out a 4 mm line of clay at a rate the depends on how fast the screw turns.
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@@ -29,9 +31,17 @@ _**Close up showing industrial pressure tube and nozzle instead of print head**
_**Compressor provides air pressure to the pressure tube**_
Eduardo wrote a grasshopper program that generates gcode from a rhino model (works only for vases and cups). I used this process to create the gcode for the printer.
