I produced a scaled-down pavilion that uses an internal sensor to monitor & then trigger various reactions to the CO2 levels from inside. The reactions include opening & closing motorised shutter walls, an automatic sliding skylight, a ventilation fan & colour-coded CO2 level warning lights. I have used stepper motors & servos to generate the movement and an Adafruit ESP 32-S2 as the brain stacked with a TFT screen to display the air quality data from the wall of the pavilion. The data is also visualised via IoT on Adafruit IO. In the end, the design worked as expected but I had to experiment with several different stepper motors and ways of mounting them until I found a good combination.  I leaned about linkages & couplings and designed several laser-cut components & mechanisms which I will be able to use in the development of a more streamlined kit version of the pavilion that I will use to deliver workshops to other young people.

I coded the project using Circuit Python to control the stepper motors, the servos, the Neopixels, the fan, the CO2 sensor, and the TFT screen. I also used CircuitPython to code the visualisation of the date on Adafruit IO.

I worked on the project in short but regular sessions over a four-month period and was able to dedicate longer periods of time to it during school breaks.

I think I should have reached out to organisations/companies that specialise in stepper motors, this would have helped me to find appropriate motors quicker, perhaps finding smaller or more efficient motors.

Testing my finished pavilion was done by altering the internal CO2 levels (a lot of heavy breathing through the pavilion windows). The code had to be tweaked several times to achieve the correct fully open and fully closed positions for the moving shutter walls and the sliding skylight.

I am considering adding a sound alert for the workshop version of the pavilion.

I will definitely continue to develop the project into a workshop format to engage other young people. A streamlined version of the scaled-down pavilion model has the potential to go to market as an educational tool.

I designed lots of individual parts, for example the stepper motor mounts/housing, these can be used to secure similar stepper motors to other projects/products. The moving shutter walls can be scaled up or down and applied to future ideas & projects, and so can the sliding skylight mechanism.

I developed some very useful joining techniques that allowed me to create large components from several small pieces of material, making use of scrap materials whilst reducing waste.

I became more aware of good & bad CO2 levels and the importance of good ventilation.

I experimented with a lot of new functions on the CAD software, some of which I applied while designing the different components.

I used a lot of cardboard models to help visualise the different sections of the pavilion structure, so my modelling skills have definitely improved. I really enjoyed seeing my cardboard mock-ups develop into neat, precise laser-cut components, and seeing the shutter walls opening & closing on their own was satisfying.

My overall problem-solving skills were tested as there were so many different elements that needed to fit together properly and the code to work altogether.

I would like to collaborate with groups or individuals in order to build a small human-sized version of the pavilion which could be tested in a real situation.

It was very challenging to design the pavilion in a way that all of the different features & main electronic components could be easily accessed without having to do a lot of major dismantling. Making several cardboard sketch models help me to gradually figure out and quickly try out ideas, and then make modifications.

My advice to anyone considering a similar project is to ask the industry specialist to share their insights. This is something that I’ll definitely do on my next project!