[Project - work in progress]
BREATHERS
breathers most important aspect is the discrepancy between familiarity and strangeness: breathing is an action performed permanently by most animals – including ourselves - to stay alive. Breathing hence strongly suggests an association to life. But breathers’ body, a coat of white plastic foil without any distinct limbs, lacks all other commonness with animals that would support this association.
simply breathing, they cause no emotions like pity or fear, neither do they pretend to be intelligent. (what other robots do sometimes) They look (and sound) less technical than walking or driving robots.
breathers are inspired by lungs. being as minimalist as possible, nine basic electronic parts, two fan motors and white plastic foil form an artificial lung. The technical parts are almost invisible from outside, only from below the breather the fan exhaust is seen. Although breathers’ behavior is easily predictable, it is not obvious how they technically function.
the used circuit is a simple, manually adjustable asynchronous oscillator, equipped with transistor switches to drive the two fans. The fans are 3 cm diameter computer cooling fans integrated into a plastic tube, rotating in opposite directions. The plastic foil is taken from thicker garbage bags, the coat is welded using four identical pieces that are connected to a tube (tail) welded from the same material.
by Sebastian Noth / Marc Blume
