Problem / Solution

Problem

Solution

Fire destroys infrastructure, causing casualties and economic losses. Inhaling smoke can cause severe cardiovascular issues, such as heart failure.

By mimicking Giant Sequoia trees, we create fire-resistant infrastructure that prevents burning and protects buildings and people from fire damage.

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Properties Mimicked:

• Giant Sequoia trees survive wildfires because of their ability to hold water.
• Their bark absorbs and moves water inward when it rains via deep groves.
• Even when fire burns the surface, the inner layers stay protected because of its moisture-retaining properties.

Biomimicry in Action

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Sequoia Bark Layers:

• Outer bark
• Living Pholem / Cambium → Moves water and nutrients
• Sapwood → Stores water inside, preventing fire from reaching the core
• Heartwood → Dry but protected because of Sapwood layer

Biomimicry in Action

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Implementation in Our Design:

• Bark-textured outer layer → Helps absorb and distribute water
• Gel layer inside → Mimics the inner moisture-rich layer (Sapwood) that holds and stores water.
• Sprinkler system → Keeps the outer layer wet, allowing water to soak into the gel layer (like rain for Giant Sequoia trees)

(wood)

(water-based)

(wood)

Biomimicry in Action

Gel Layer

(water-based)

Diagram

Exterior Layer

(wood)

Interior Layer

(wood)

Bark texture

(porous holes)

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Process

(skip during presentation)

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Conceptual Precedent

Technical Precedents

Exterior Sketch I

Exterior Sketch II

Interior Sketch



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Initial Prototype

Incorporating Mid-Review Feedback: Enhancing Biomimicry

Explain Biomimicry in Detail (Teachers):

• Feedback: Explain more about how the project mimics Giant Sequoia trees. Show diagrams of Giant Sequoia’s layers and how water moves through the tree.
• Incorporation: We further explained Sequoia bark’s structure, moisture-retaining layers, and how the tree distributes and stores water. We included diagrams comparing Sequoia bark layers to our design (outer bark texture and inner gel layer).

Gel Layer Expansion (Mr. Banister):

• Feedback: Apply the gel layer to the roof, as it usually catches on fire first.
• Incorporation: We added the gel layer to the roof by expanding our interconnected outer bark texture design.

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Incorporating Mid-Review Feedback: Project

Water Coverage & Mister System (ChatGPT*):

• Feedback: Replace the sprinkler with multi-directional spray systems.
• Incorporation: We upgraded to two pumps and misters, ensuring water coverage for all angles.

Automation System (Mr. Danziger):

• Feedback: Integrate a system for automatic water deployment.
• Incorporation: We implemented an automatic water deployment system that sprays water every 10 seconds for 3.5 seconds.

Controlled Burn Test (ChatGPT* & Mr. Danziger):

• Feedback: Perform a controlled burn test to validate the real-world performance of the design.
• Incorporation: We conducted a controlled burn test, which provided data on how the structure withstands fire.

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*we implemented all of ChatGPT suggestions from Mid-Review

Exterior Sketch III

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Problems: leaks, water strength

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Automatic Water Deployment System

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Controlled Burn Test

"Normal House"

Our Project

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Controlled Burn Test: Results

"Normal House"

Our Project

Our Project: Inner Layer

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Final Exterior Sketch

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Final Interior (Electronic) Sketch

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Video

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"In Use" Image

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Detailed Image (Labeled): Exterior

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Porous Holes

House

Gel Layer

(Inside the House)

"Mister"

"Mister"

Tube

Water Reservoir

Pump

Wiring

Electronics

Detailed Image (Labeled): Interior (Electronic)

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Pump

9V Battery

Tubes

Arduino

5V Relay

Breadboard

Push Button

Power Source

Overall Images

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Defy The Flames

The Facts

• On space cooling alone, Americans spend about $26 Billion each year.

• The IEA estimates that around 1 billion tones of CO2 comes from cooling systems in 2022.

• About 2.7% of total CO2 emissions.

Problem & Solution

• Rooms and espessialy weight rooms can often get uncomfortably hot and humid inside

• To get rid of the warm, humid air, the windows open to let the air out and fresh air in.

• Inspired by pinecones, which open in changes of humidity or heat, we applied this concept to a room or weight room.

How do Pine Cones Open and Close due to Temperature?

• Pinecones open and close in response to changes in temperature and humidity.

• This process is called thermoperiodism movement, they do this to disperse their seeds in the best weather conditions for the to spread

• When weather gets wet and humid and/or the temperature drops, the scales will close and vise-versa

The Mechanism Behind the Pinecone

• Outer most side of the scale is made of a layer of loosely packed, stretchable cells.
• The inner layer is made of stiff fibers tightly packed like cables.
• water fills up the cells and the empty spaces between them. This layer expands and stretches, while the less flexible upper layer stays more taut. The scales bend upward in the middle until they curl completely shut.

What is LEED?

• The world's most widely used green building rating system.

• LEED certification provides a framework for healthy, highly efficient, and cost-saving green buildings, which offer environmental, social and governance benefits.

Largest fossil-fuel-free building in Boston, relying on deep wells to harness the thermal capacity of the earth for heating and cooling and eliminate the need to connect the building to a gas line.

No gas lines connected to the entire building!

Initial Sketches

Mid Review Sketch

Second Prototype

Arduino for the Servo Motor

Arduino

Servo Motors

Our Next Steps After Midreview

• Better material; wood

• Better support for the windows

• Change our mechanism of how the windows opened and closed

• Better hinges for the smooth movements

• Heat/humidity sensor in the room to signal the motors



• Clean up the wires

Mid-Review Feedback

• Describe the details and function of pinecones.

• Have different windows open at various temperatures. For example, when it's warmer more windows open and when it's cooler less windows open.

• Think more about the aesthetic of the building and the shapes of windows to not just function like a pinecone but also look like one.

• Look into LEED and adaptive architechture to see how we could apply them to our project

Adaptive Architecture

Final Sketches

Room and Windows Iteration 2

Final Prototype

Goes alot slower in person*

How we could take this one step further

• This could be applied to a real world project

• Make our project look and act more like a pinecone

• Make the windows open gradually in relation to the temperature

• Could make a round room or level of a building with pinecone windows all around

Ships suffer from small punctures that can cause severe damage, as they are unable to return to shore.

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By applying the conceptual role of sap and its protection methods to the hulls of boats we can greatly increase the likelihood of boats making it back to shore. It can also allow ships to continue on their route without making an emergency stop which will greatly increase fuel efficiency.

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Cross section in hull of boat

Hardened Cement

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Cross section in hull of boat

Area for cement to store

Hole where water would seep through

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const int moistureSensorPin = A0;  // Signal pin of the moisture sensor

const int ledPin = 13;             // LED connected to pin 8

const int moistureThreshold = 1; // Adjust based on testing

void setup() {

  Serial.begin(9600);         // Start Serial Monitor

  pinMode(ledPin, OUTPUT);    // Set LED pin as output

  pinMode(moistureSensorPin, INPUT); // Set sensor pin as input

}

void loop() {

  int moistureValue = analogRead(moistureSensorPin); // Read sensor value

  Serial.print("Moisture Value: ");

  Serial.println(moistureValue); // Print sensor value for debugging

// Check moisture level

  if (moistureValue < moistureThreshold) {

    digitalWrite(ledPin, HIGH); // Turn on LED if soil is dry

  } else {

    digitalWrite(ledPin, LOW);  // Turn off LED if soil is moist

  }

  delay(500); // Wait 0.5 seconds before the next reading

}

Water sensor

Arduino board

Water sensors

Arduino Board

Breadboard

LEDs

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This is a precedent for the top cover we used in our final design. It allows the water sensors to be protected so they don't get damaged, and it completes the full look of a boat. This addition was mostly astehetic.

Other feedback we recieved during mid-reviews was to make different sections (Ex. Section A) so that when water was detected, it would be easier for the captain to find and locate the issue. In our final design, we split up the area with the cement into four sections each with it's own water sensor and LED. We coded it so that when water was detected in one of the sensors, the LED would turn on.

A

A

A

Hull of boat

Different sections

Removable cover for cement

storage

Use

2nd Use

Water sensors

LEDs

Initial Ideas

Problem/Evocative images

Plants placed in greenhouses do not absorb enough UV lighting on cloudy days. The surrounding transparent surfaces dimiishes UV lighting.

Solution/Technical precedent

Create an automated cover for the transparent surfaces. On cloudy days it will close to let the plants receive enough UV lighting. on sunny days it will open to maximize the amount of sunlight the plants will be receiving

Conceptual precedent

Prototype Sketches

Prototype ChatGPT Feedback

Prototype progress

Working Prototype Picture

Mid-Review Feedback

1. Focus more on Mechanical design, try to play with different combinations.
2. Consider the shape of most greenhouses, most do not have a flat top
3. Try to take it one step at a time, make one piece move first as compared to 4 pieces at the same time.
4. Take the closing threshold into consideration, figure out at what lumen do the roof close and when it opens. 
5. Consider incorporating a manual switch to open/close roof 
6. Add a picture of the object being mimicked
7. Consider Incorporating some sort of railing system to keep the roof pieces attached to the gears

Final Sketches

In order to detect light precisely via lumens, the project required a TSL2561 light sensor.

Tip for Noobs: Do Not use Tinkercad for advanced Arduino coding

Failure

Tinkercad didn't have the modules (TSL2561 light sensor) we needed, so we ChatGPTed the code

Valid

We figured out the specific threshold to close the roof, 1500 lumens (Credits to ChatGPT)

Working Code Video

Great... Nailed the code first try on the 1st day of Chinese New year (Beijing time)

The servo motors weren't tall enough after they were attached to the acrylic sheet, so we had to stack wooden boards together to decrease the height between the gear and the rack. However the Acrylic sheet was too wide.

Redesigned acrylic dimension

Motion of movement without motor

Solution to Mid-review feedback

Wiring... in detail Detail

Overall view

 Good News: It Works Bad News: Not Perfectly

If we have had more time... We would:

1. Worked on a different drive system
2. Figured out a railing system to prevent the rooftops being De-railed (Not Rubber Bands)
3. Collaborated better, distributed the workload evenly
4. Sought different combinations/types of motors, see which works best.
5. Figured out a better roof orientation

Ideas on different drive/rail systems

Ideas on different drive/rail systems

Problem

Every year in the United States, billions of dollars are lost due to flooding or severe storms. The damage to these crops puts heavy financial burdens on the farmers and consumers, potentially leading to food shortages in very extreme cases.

Biology's Solution

Fungus-growing ants are a species of ant that cannot digest leaves. They create hanging gardens to generate food by feeding a fungus they produce collected biological material. Higher species of ant have domesticated their fungal crop to the point the fungus cannot live without them. The

Ants do hang their

gardens to protect

against flood damage

and harmful microbes.

The ants not only care for these farms by creating the fungus and gathering biological material to grow but also care for them the way a human farmer would. Specialized ants weed the crops and lick them to remove any harmful pathogens. They also keep their crops at an optimal humidity, allowing the fungus to absorb water.

Video from Mr. D!!

Our Solution

We plan to create a hanging garden, replicating that of the fungus-growing ants. Our design will have a hanging layer that is well protected against flooding and pests as well as a ground-level layer to optimise space management

Original Ideas

Enzo

Jack

Final Sketch

Initial Prototype

Water Storage

Frame

Hanging Plantation

Lower Plantation

Incorporating Mid-Review Feedback

The main feedback we received was focused on the method we used to move the water from the top layer to the bottom. We decided to focus mainly on having the water percolate through the top layer and be filtered as opposed to using overflow, which could over-hydrate the plants and cause loss of soil. We also incorporated feedback to automate the pump process.

Incorporating Chat GPT Feedback

The main piece of feedback we chose to incorporate was focused on a filtration system for the water that flowed down to prevent dirty water or large chunks of soil from falling though. However, none of the feedback we received from Chat GPT worked well for our design. So we used large coffee filter paper from the CCI.

Challenges

Due to the holes in the base and the weak nature of the coffee filter paper, dirt fell through the bottom. To stop this we added a layer of sticks to form tights gaps. Supporting the filter and allowing water to flow freely, but supporting the dirt and preventing it from collapsing

Challenge with coding

We initially intended to use a pump that would turn on automatically when the soil was dry. However, there was no pump that could be coded and was strong enough for what we needed. We settled on using a stronger pump and a system of lights that alerted you when the soil was dry.

Iterations

Iterations

Iterations

Iterations

This was supposed to be a moisture sensor but accidently received a temperature sensor. Led to a lot of coding errors and a headache.

Labelled image Arduino

Lights will light up depending on moisture level. 4 is very wet, 0 is very dry.

Arduino

Moisture Sensor

Breadboard

const int sensorPin = A0; const int ledPins[4] = {2, 4, 6, 8}; // Updated LED pin numbers void setup() { Serial.begin(9600); for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { pinMode(ledPins[i], OUTPUT); } } void loop() { int moisture = analogRead(sensorPin); Serial.print("Moisture Level: "); Serial.println(moisture); int ledCount = map(moisture, 400, 750, 0, 4); // Adjust range based on sensor readings ledCount = constrain(ledCount, 0, 4); // Ensure value stays between 0 and 4 for (int i = 0; i < 4; i++) { if (i < ledCount) { digitalWrite(ledPins[i], HIGH); } else { digitalWrite(ledPins[i], LOW); } } delay(1000); }

Labelled Final imaged

Arduino Holder

Hanging Garden

Lower Garden

Water Holder

Tube for water

Thank You!!