Welcome to the virtual presentation of E-seed:
an interactive interface that self drills.
I am Danli, I will be representing our team
from Morphing Matter Lab
at Carnegie Mellon University.
E-seed is designed to connect and resonate
between the underground
and our surrounding environment.
Think about how human currently deploys sensors outdoors.
It is usually a manual process,
covers a limited area,
and difficult to carry out
in hard-to-reach mountain regions.
To monitor natural activities with IoT technology,
we need to consider the depth of deployment,
the exact locations of deployed sensors,
costs, and also energy efficiency.
To target at low-cost,
massive deployment of sensors in remote areas,
we leverage the plant intelligence
as our source of inspiration.
For example, a cucumber grows its tendril,
germinating from the ground,
that tries to grab any support and grow taller.
A wheat ear, which carries the seed inside,
has two awns that open and close alternatively
as it falls on the ground and tries to bury the seed.
Erodium, a genus of plant
that has this coiled awn on its seed,
twists its awn and self-drills into the ground
upon the absorption of water.
This special mechanism inspired E-seed.
We carefully studied the structure
of this natural actuator
that self-anchors into a certain depth
and derived a series of processes to craft E-seed,
a replica of Erodium guinum in size,
and also the self-drilling mechanism.
As you can see,
this E-seed starts to twist its body
as it absorbs water from the rain.
When it dries out, the twisting occurs
in the opposite direction.
This cycle can be repeated many times
until E-seed successfully establishes itself
into the ground.
On top of a naked E-seed,
we derive a series of functionalities
that can be incorporated into
the design space of E-seed.
An E-seed can be a display.
We can apply fluorescent or reflective paint
on the surface to bounce light signals,
or attach LEDs to display light signals.
It can also bear miniature sensing devices,
such as moisture sensor to monitor soil condition,
RFID tags to identify and track objects,
range sensor to detect proximity.
Sensors can also be analog,
such as pH- or chemically responsive dye
that changes color when exposed to hazards.
All these functions rely on
the successful anchoring of E-seed,
which is an inherent function derived from nature
as its actuation mechanism.
With modified single E-seed,
we can then build a network of E-seeds
that are connected to a central hub,
which offloads the computational unit
and power source,
to achieve multi-functional field monitoring.
in Rhinoceros using the Grasshopper plug-in.
The design tool provides us
with a basic outline of E-seed,
and we can customize this add-on padding area,
by changing its shape and size,
to afford additional functionality.
We present three examples to showcase the application of E-seed.
First, we dye them with fluorescent paints
in three colors that mark two tip sections
and the body under UV illumination.
The fluorescent colors can be clearly captured
by camera under UV light.
We can identify the location and burial percentage
of each E-seed to help us track and recycle them.
Second, we imagine an interactive garden labeled with E-seeds
carrying battery-free, tether-free,
and writable RFID tags.
After a tagged E-seed is anchored,
you can interact with the RFID
by using any NFC reader,
such as one on a mobile phone.
We envision this application can be broadened
into interactive setups in arboretums or museums
to trigger reactions from the garden.
Lastly, we present multiple E-seeds functioning in synergy.
Four E-seeds with customized light intensity sensors
are spread and wired to a mothership
carrying the control board and power source.
Each E-seed has a sensing capability
to cover a certain area.
When something invades this covered area,
it triggers the mothership to emit light and sound
to drive out the threat.
We would like to acknowledge the generous support from Accenture Labs
and CMU Manufacturing Futures Initiative.
And all our collaborators who contributed along the way.
Thank you!