For our Physical Computing homework this week, we were tasked with creating a project that showed gesture using a Servo Motor.

Lara and I teamed up and combined our servo-skills and hardware. Inspired by Arthur Ganson‘s work, we decided to create a butterfly whose wings would flap gracefully.

We started by coding our motors to rotate gracefully. We used an easing technique with the following equation:

(target position – current position [distance left to go] / increment) + current position

This increments the distance the servo is turning and makes the motor turn quickly at first, and then slower and slower toward the target. Increasing the increment makes the motor move slower, with more easing. The two motors were coded to run opposite of each other to make the wings flap in opposite-union. Please check out our code.

We then created our butterfly using a wire frame and wrapping it with tissue paper. We then attached a wood rod parallel to each of the motor horns, and then affixed the other end of the rod to the outside of the butterfly wings. When the motors are on and turning, the wings are compressed and expanded, creating the illusion of fluidly flapping wings.

Here is a photo of our creation.

… and a pair of videos to show it in action!

Butterfly 1 from Tami on Vimeo.

mechanical butterfly from war_man on Vimeo.