Prototype Patio Umbrella
Making use of triangulation and light sensors, the Patio Umbrella automatically detects the brightest source of light, typically the sun, and moves to optimize its shade for its users. Once night hits, the umbrella automatically detects this, and returns to an upright position and starts to provide lighting for night time use.
How it works
The system incorporates a microcontroller built into the shaft of the umbrella. This microcontroller takes in data based off of three different sensors to triangulate on the brightest source of light. This triangulation only works when there is light, if there is no light detected the servo and stepper motors return to their default state, and a customizable LED strip turns on. This is only a prototype made in a few hours, roughly five, and still has plenty of refinement to be done.
This umbrella was created in only a few hours of work for my arduino class, with that mostly being soldering all the wires together. I plan on continuing to pursue this idea, taking it to the next level, incorporating new features. There were plenty of issues with this prototype, however, that is part of the design progress, we learn from our prototypes, improving on the next.