The end

So the final project:
Materials: High density polyethylene "leaf" shapes routed by the CNC router, with pockets for solar panels and channels for wires. Formica laminated on top of the plastic, both to hide the wires and give it a more finished feel. The Formica is laminated on with contact cement.

Structure: To hold the array to the wall, Mat and I designed a basic structure for which I made the routing file. It essentially consisted of two boxes at each end of the "leaf" axis. One box housed the sensor and the circular plates attached to the leafs to make the spinning motion smoother, the other box provided space for the servos, attachment mechanisms from leaf to servo, wiring and arduinos.

Programming: The leaves will move in a solar tracking motion while the array is plugged in. When someone comes close to the sensor, the leaves will finish the cycle they are in and then begin to respond to the proximity of the person to the sensor and flip depending on the distance they are away. This way, the closer you are the more the panels flip over, etc.

Solar panels: In the end, it was most efficient to use normal coated solar panels instead of the broken ones because they would have a more consistent voltage and would make the whole system work much more consistently.

Installation: In the end, we decided it would be best to hang the stucture on one end, and mount it to the wall on the other. However, it turned out that bolting the whole thing into the wall would simply not work because the drywall was not strong enough to hold our entire surface. We ended up building supports for the back of the surface and hung it on the front side.

Process: Related to final production, this is sort of how the work ended up being divided... Chris spent a lot of time with the CNC router getting final files routed, Mat and I were there as well to help out. We spend an entire night putting individual leaves together. I did most of the gluing, Jason and Alyssa soldered solar panels, Mat and Chris attached servos to the glued together pieces. This process was a lot slower than we had expected. Turns out the laminating idea, which we thought would save us time, actually cost us a lot of time. Another night was spend starting the assembly, wiring, and troubleshooting. The last night we spent mounting to the wall, troubleshooting our servos (and not studying for Structures).