Piro
In 2018, IDEO and moooi set out to imagine what it might mean to humanize technology. Together we created Piro, an elegant and playful robotic scent diffuser that is able to blow smoke rings to delight spectators. I worked as the technical lead for the project, managing all aspects of the mechanical, electrical, programming, and animation of the robots.
I worked with a dance choreographer to tell the story of Piro. Together we created motifs to an original soundtrack. The 4.5 minute routine was on display at Salone in Milan, Italy in the summer of 2022 to thousands of guests.
The smoke rings added a dynamic and surprising moment to the performance. A fully custom-built assembly was tuned to generate reliable smoke rings for continuous 10-12 hour run times
MarIOnette was used extensively to prototype and explore various movements, light patterns, and sequences
One of the robots had an interactive element and used computer vision to follow visitors. A thermal camera was used to mitigate privacy concerns and simplify detection
To prevent smoke leakage in between routines, an iris mechanism was integrated into the aperture of the robots
In total, 7 robots and 14 smoke cartridges were built in order to minimize downtime. The robots ran for over 80 hours, and the only service required was the refilling of the smoke cartridges at the end of each day
Piro now sits as a permanent installation at IDEO's headquarters in San Francisco. A raspberry pi runs the thermal camera detection, plays video, and runs a sample animation from the Milan showcase. I built a custom webpage to monitor the robot, and it has been running with minimal maintenance for over a year.
In April 2024, we returned to Milan and showcased the next evolution of Piro. The new model is a static diffuser, using water-based atomization and the same familiar smoke ring kiss.
We built 6 models for the show to minimize downtime in case one of the three on display encountered an issue.
All of the models can be controlled simultaneously with a rechargeable touch screen remote running a custom GUI on an ESP-32 microcontroller.