Linear Servo Kinetic Wall

Linear servos are amazing. With the absolute positioning and linear motion, there are some really cool things that can be made to move. As part of our R&D work on pitches, we bought 50 small linear servos to build a kinetic wall. In Phase 1 of the project, the first thing we did was design a simple grid of them that could be easily wired into an Arduino Uno, using Adafruit Servo shields.

Our team programmed a simple yet effective way to move each servo simultaneously in a wave pattern to test out what is possible. They don't move that fast and also require a lot of power. For every 15 servos, we needed one 5V 5amp power supply, otherwise they all start glitching, as they cry for more power.

Phase 2 is in progress now, as we design a visual interface using TouchDesigner. Using a combination of animated noise and 3D shapes, we can extract the point data from these and apply the point height on a grid to each linear servo. This will cause all of the servos to basically create the shape shown on the screen. This can be done with images as well, using brightness data for the distance the servo would travel.

Phase 3 will be the kinetic wall or ceiling design. We have much larger and faster linear servos for this phase and intend to add small LED panels to the end of each arm. Our team is not afraid to tackle large installation projects like this. Engineering something like this is what makes our jobs fun and exciting.

Author: Brian Dressel