Here’s the winner of the quick “What you’re making in 2009” contest, send me a note Brent to collect your prize, a Maker’s Notebook!
Posted by: Brent on January 1, 2009 at 11:07 AM
Resolving to Complete my Solenoid Project
I’m resolving to complete my solenoid project this year. Scavenged dishwasher solenoids and assembled a voltage regulator board to allow an arduino to control the output of water through the valves. Essentially the valves fill the room with rain, and as a participant walks underneath the valves shut off leaving them dry, but standing in the middle of a shower. Seems like I’ve been working on this one for a long time, but I knew nothing about soldering, plumbing, electronics, blob detection prior to the project! If anyone’s interested, more of my project details are up on my blog.
3 thoughts on “Winner of “What you’re making in 2009””
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Brent’s blog about this thing is at http://www.eightlines.com/blog/category/ideas/controlling-rain/
Did anyone else reading the description think this project needs an ‘invert’ option? So where the person walks in the room is the ONLY place it is raining! It only rains on them.
Thanks, hello for including the link to the specific blog post.
Simon, I was thinking about an invert option, hooked up to an umbrella. If you walked under the camera with a particular pattern it would change the rainfall pattern to only target the one point. Been reading up on fiducial markers just for this purpose.
The version you see in the blog post is an old version. I’ve managed to shrink the size by an order of magnitude by using some underground garden sprinkler splitters. They regulate the pressure, which means I don’t have to have a massive reservoir any longer.