Introduction: Fan Me, Intern! a Mechanically Actuated Fan

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Many people know of the imagery of 'servants' fanning 'royalty' with palm leaves. It is popular source of comedy among many fictional shows. However, this concept is about to turn to reality with this new project.

It started out as a joke at work, where more senior members were talking about using interns as mechanical fans, since the AC broke. Me, being the tech geek that I am, decided to enslave robots to do it for me!

Step 1: Tools and Materials

  • Arduino 101 or Arduino Uno
  • Servo motor
  • Paper (the bigger the more airflow)
  • Jumper Wires
  • Tape
  • Scissors or X-acto blade

Step 2: Folding the Fan

  • Fold a piece of paper into eighths.
  • Using one of the 'eighths' fold as an outline, continue to fold the rest of the paper in an alternating fashion
  • Once completely folded, tape the bottom of the folds together to form a paper fan shape.

Step 3: Attaching the Fan to the Servo

  • Cut a notch on the paper fan approximately the size of the servo horn
  • Then, tape this notch onto the servo horn on both sides. Make sure to secure it well.

Step 4: Circuitry

Wiring the Servo to the Arduino board is rather simple, since all that is needed is to power the servo, and send a PWM signal from the Arduino.

  • Connect the red pin from the servo to 5V pin in the Arduino
  • Connect the black pin from the servo to the GND pin in the Arduino.
  • Then, connect the digital pin 9 from the Arduino to the white pin of the servo.

Step 5: Code

//include the servo library
#include

//create a servo object called servo1 Servo servo1;

void setup() { // put your setup code here, to run once: //attach servo1 to pin 9 on the Arduino 101 servo1.attach(9); }

void loop() { // Tell servo to go to 60 degrees servo1.write(60);

// Pause to get it time to move delay(200);

// Tell servo to go to 180 degrees servo1.write(180);

delay(200); }

Step 6: Demo

The fan will be rotating 120 degrees, and holding the base of the servo allows the horn to pivot upon the servo's base. Since the time interval is 200 milliseconds, the servo will cycle through the rotations every 400 milliseconds, continually fanning her majesty's royal highness.

Keep Cool!