Philip Beesley - Robert Gorbet

(University of Waterloo)

Arduino at Work: the Hylozoic Soil control system

Arduino is an open-source physical computing platform that was created to make tools for software-controlled interactivity accessible to non-specialists. The palm-sized Arduino microcontroller board can read sensors, make simple decisions, and control devices.

This microcontroller is the product of an open-source community project that began with a small group of hardware developers that gave workshops and now numbers many tens of thousands of international users that cooperate in developing specialized applications. Hylozoic Soil, an interactive environment exhibited in 2007 at the Montreal Museum of Fine Art, is an example of Arduino at work.

The distributed nature of Hylozoic Soil and the group behaviour which emerges is strongly related to the opensource Arduino project. Occupants move within the Hylozoic Soil structure as they would through a dense thicket within a forest. Microprocessor-controlled sensors embedded within the environment signal the presence of occupants, and motion ripples through the system in response. Dozens of microprocessors, each controlling series of sensors and actuators created emergent reactions akin to the composite motion of a crowd. .Visitors moved freely amidst hundreds of kinetic devices within this environment, tracked by many dozens of sensors organized in ‘neighbourhoods’ that exchanged signals in chains of reflexive responses.

The installation was designed as a flexible, accretive kit of interlinking parts organized by basic geometries and connection systems. Variations were created by numerous individuals assembling the work.The result was a turbulent chorus of motion. The first developers of Arduino- Massimo Banzi, David Cuartielles, Tom Igoe, Gianluca Martino, David Mellis, and Nicholas Zambetti- ran workshops that demonstrated assembly of the devices and gave the board away to stimulate development. A community of developers and users now provide cooperative support, and the programming environment and documentation is written with the neophyte in mind.

The Arduino community has to date created myriad documents describing how to extend and interface Arduino with different systems, including • MaxStream’s inexpensive and compact XBee RF wireless transcievers • Bluetooth-enabled mobile phones, with the Arduino BT extended board • LCD displays • Cycling 74’s Max/MSP/Jitter graphical scripting environment

Philip Beesley

(University of Waterloo)

Philip Beesley practices architecture, art and research in Waterloo and Toronto, Canada. He is an Associate Professor at the University of Waterloo, School of Architecture in Cambridge, Ontario and is co-director of Waterloo's Integrated Centre for Manufacturing, Visualization and Design, a facility combining high-performance computing and automated manufacturing of architectural components. He received his professional degree in Architecture from the University of Toronto and received a Bachelor of Fine Art from Queen's University in 1978 both summa cum laude. Prior to entering architecture he was a visual artist
and worked in instrument making and machining.

Robert Gorbet

(co-author PhD PEng /University of Waterloo)

A professor of mechatronics engineering at the University of Waterloo, he teaches courses in Robotics, Control Systems, and Microprocessor Interfacing. He is a director of the facility for Theoretical and Applied Research in Smart Actuators and Sensors (TARSAS). His pioneering research explores the use of shape memory alloy "memory metals" as actuators, with applications for MEMS devices and embedded systems in areas such as biomedical robotics and sattelite communications.
Rob holds a PhD in Electrical Engineering from the University of Waterloo, and is a licensed Professional Engineer in the province of Ontario and a member of the IEEE.