We designed and built a 40 foot kinetic installation for Shopify's Offices in Toronto, with Taylor Group. 20 planks each have 2 stepper motors with attached "prisms" that are fabricated from laminated foam. The motors are run by very quiet TMC2160 drivers, with AS5600 magnetic encoders attached for closed-loop positioning. These are controlled by a regular old Arduinos. The 20 arduinos are networked over USB to a Raspberry Pi running a node.js program for sequencing the movements into patterns. USB allowed us to update all the arduinos in a few minutes using a script. We also created a 3D simulation in three.js to allow us to develop patterns without the physical rig.
Thanks! Hopefully when my little one is a little older, and tenure is behind me, then I'll have a little more time to work on my open source projects again :)
Very fresh and future-office space look.