Current progress

• Finalized project idea

• Planning a coral reef tour of the Natural History Museum

Stakeholder Interview #1

• Met with Anna from the Society of Women Engineers

• Changes to our idea: the robotic fish will aid humans and won't act independently. Maybe we can say that these fish have internal systems that can decompose harmful materials in a supervised body of water.

Stakeholder Interview #2

• Met with Zafir, a member of the Sierra Club

• Changes to our idea: Make our project more collaborative and engaging, such as adding trivia. Pick unique fish to represent -- look into specific fish species we want to create

Current progress

• Found a tank to test our fish in

• Prototyped first iteration of the fish

• Ordered and received our 40-gallon fish tank

• Updated the homepage of the website to discuss aquatic habitat destruction due to human activity

• Begin iterating our recycled trash coral reef

 Reflection 

• While spring break was a slight hangup, our group was still able to hold our weekly meeting through zoom and ordered our tank. We are happy about our progress in designing the tank and contacting stakeholders. We completed our first test of the robotic fish, which was a massive step in the right direction. 

Stakeholder Interviews #3, 4, and 5

• Regularly meet with Dr. Derrick Yeo, Krystelle Fernandez, and Devin Jones to build the robotic fish

• Designing new methods of waterproofing: grease plus labyrinth seal around electronics

• Learned of ways to use sensors to allow for the fish to coordinate its movements: IR sensors

Stakeholder Interview [NO RESPONSE]

• Contacted and received a response from Joseph Trumpey, a U-M STAMPS professor, about speaking with him about creating art from recycled trash

• Meeting scheduled for next week

Current Progress:

• This week, we have made an abundance of progress adding more scintillating aspects to our aqueous robotic sanctuary. We worked very hard using a variety of materials and chemical adhesives in order to make sure that when our project is eventually displayed, it will be effective in its message to its fullest glory. We have taken great steps towards the realization of our project; iterating through the creative process to progress our ideas, intimating our ideas through a meaningful and informative artist statement, and utilizing our engineering skills in order to design our aquarium in a way that is inducive, beautiful and productive. We will continue to improve our project and further develop and evolve our conveyed messages.

Stakeholder Interview #8

• We engaged in several stakeholder interviews this week. This included a visit to Christina Said, senior in Chemical Engineering with a focus on chemical sustainability (more info on stakeholders tab).  We learned a lot of new information on how to better portray our ideas and how we can improve our concept.

Stakeholder Interviews #9 and #10

• We also met with TJ and Rachel, peer mentors of LAE, to discuss pollution beyond the scope of oceans and art/design of our coral reefs respectively (more info on stakeholders tab). We gained a lot of knowledge on how to bring the artistic aspect of our project to the forefront.

Reflection

• While time left in the course is a slight struggle, we are happy about our work this week and think we are on pace to getting the project complete in a week. We are also excited to showcase our work to the rest of Living Arts Engine and the UofM community. We believe our project is coming together quite well and are satisfied with how it conveys our message. The robotics fish have come along swimmingly (pun intended). Our project is a good mix of simplicity, with trash being used as a primary medium, and complexity, with the work on the robotic fish. We are passionate the ideas that the project conveys and are thrilled to put the finishing touches on the project.

Future Work

Our future work is to add in the robotic fish to the rest of the tank. Before the symposium, we will also fill the tank and test to make sure our objects are still glued to the bottom. We will make sure that when we are finished, the audience will be able to explore and experience the full extent of our ambition. Of course, we must rehearse our presentation as well so that we are well prepared for the symposium. Additionally, we hope to add a recycling bin tipped over the side of the tank to further support our message, especially we will not be present in the art gallery after the symposium. 

Team Member Contributions

• Ronald: Ordered LED lights for the project, filled out symposium registration, helped with CCP one-slide presentation, attended and participated in all group meetings 

• Yatee: Soldered more Arduinos to power a swarm of fish. Mass produced several floatation devices for the fish to swim on the surface.

• Thomas: Help make CCP one-slide presentation, helped measure project for symposium registration, helped with design fish tank

• Williams: Collected habitat pieces and enhanced the visual and physical ambience of the habitat. Helped write DevBlog and summarized current progress.

• Adam: Put together physical elements in tank and brought plastic pieces together to work into our message and ideas. Wrote artist statement and helped complete slide presentation.

Symposium Goals

When our piece was presented at the symposium, our primary goal was, of course, to raise awareness about the continuing problem of ocean pollution. We believe the all-plastic coral reef encompassed this message quite well, while also being a visually fascinating art piece. We hoped the viewer would be drawn in by the robotic fish and take some time to take in the coral reef. We hope this piece served as a reminder to the continuing ocean pollution problem, and the worldwide environmental disregard problem as whole. With so many pressing political issues today, it feels like society has put environmental issues like these on the backburner, so our project served to push it forward again.

Symposium Observations

We noticed that a lot of people enjoyed the robotic fish component, as well as the coral reef art. This was fulfilling to see. Before the symposium, we knew that the robotic fish would catch people's attention, but the coral reef was more of an aesthetic that we were happy garnered a lot of attention. We believe our piece had the impact we expected and hoped for, as many people stopped by our stand. One thing of note was that we felt the presentation aspect of the symposium did not lend quite as well to our project than others. The message is quite self-explanatory in the piece, so it felt like we were repeating ourselves when given the microphone. Nonetheless, we were very happy with the attention our project received at the symposium.

What "went right"

Our entire group shone with creativity, critical thinking, and enthusiasm toward contributing to our project. The fish and coral reef turned out phenomenal. Plus, we couldn't have been more happy with the contributions from Kristelle and Devon when it came to the robotic fish. The robotic fish were very impressive and fun to watch swimming around the tank. One component of the coral reef that turned out beautiful and better than expected was the ramen and bubble wrap coral, which we cut into strips and then let the buoyancy of the plastic in the water turn it into very convincing and visually fascinating coral. Overall, we were quite proud of how our final product came together, and we couldn't have been so successful without contributions from the everyone on the team. 

Challenges Faced

Setting up team meetings and finding a time where everyone was available proved to be a challenge. Our group had five students with five different schedules, but we are proud of each other for being able to meet once a week almost every week and staying on pace throughout this semester. Many challenged posed themselves during the day of the symposium. The duct tape and even some of the hot glue we used to hold together many of the components of the coral reef failed when the tank we filled with water. We had to think on our feet and place quite a few rocks inside the tank so our reef didn't float. Additionally, the "cup tower" came apart, which we were forced to quickly fix with duct tape (the very duct tape that was proven not to hold) after the tank was already filled with water. Once thing of note was that the robotics fish ran out of battery after the symposium, which was expected, but unfortunately reduced the visual impact of our project in the following days.

Changes for the Future

In a general sense, we would change how we approach our planning. For example, we would likely change the way in which we test the robotic fish. The robotic fish were tested in tanks in the Ford Robotics Building and unfortunately could not leave the building until the symposium. We could has planned to find a way to bring our tank in or get permission from the robotics staff to bring the robotics out so we would be able to test the robotic fish in our tank. This would have ensured that the robotics were tested for the obstacles/boundaries in our tank. In addition, we would certainly use more water-proof fastener in our tank, like flex tape or a greater volume of hot glue, to prevent the mishaps that presented themselves on the day of the symposium. Overall, these are both issues of not planning ahead for logistics and considering potential obstacles. However, we learned from these experiences and will refine our approach to logistically and preventive planning in future creative projects.