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Umbrella | Project Construction


The project, which has not been entitled yet, aims to construct a black umbrella that can be opened and closed autonomously. This umbrella opens and plays the song called “Katibim” when there is rain in Üsküdar. The song stops simultaneously with the closure of the umbrella when the rain stops. The size of the umbrella has been decided to be three times bigger than the usual personal umbrellas, since the relation between the installed object and where it has been placed has been taken into consideration, and it is meant to be a public umbrella that can cover many. The ready-made garden umbrella is bought yet its original plastic end tip will be replaced by hand made wooden one, and also a handle made of wood will be attached to that in order to present a huge version of an individual one rather than a garden umbrella. Additionally, the cloth of the umbrella will be modified accordingly.

Raspberry Pi, a small single-board computer, has been used in the project for the creation of an autonomous system. The program, which is written in Python, gets the weather data from weather API and issues a command to run a linear actuator which is placed alongside the shaft of the umbrella. The linear actuator, a piston-like motor that can go up and down at a constant speed, opens the umbrella by pushing it from its runner. There is an electronic component called a "relay" in between the Raspberry Pi output and a linear actuator, which operates the electric switches in order to make the actuator go for the intended direction, up or down. The Raspberry Pi, the speakers, the umbrella base which carries the weight will be hidden in the pedestal constructed for the umbrella.

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