We’ve seen plenty of amazing installations in the past, but none may be as mesmerizing as this Arduino-powered water fountain by Base42. The team, who is part of the Tecnoateneu Vilablareix hacker group, has built an absolutely stunning water curtain that’s currently on display at the Temps de Flors flower show in Girona.
The installation is comprised of 128 3D-printed nozzles and 64 3D-printed valves that dispense water in floral patterns. Four Arduino Nano boards (ATmega328) are used to control the valves, each responsible for 16 valves via a I2C bus, to draw the flowers, words or other images. Meanwhile, a Mega (ATmega2560) provides Wi-Fi connectivity to issue commands to the curtain.
A tank at the base holds 500 liters of water, while a pump pushes that fluid to the top of the system at a rate of 80 liters per minute. Water passes down through the 3D-printed nozzles, forming a 10′ x 6’ H2O screen. To create different patterns in the curtain, the nozzles can rapidly adjust the direction of the water to one of two nozzles in a pair. Nearly two dozen prototypes were created and tested before arriving at the final 3D-printed valve — it needs to be able to be shut off quickly.
Intrigued? You can read more about the project here.