Cloud Machine
2025
An interactive system where WiFi signals and temperature data generate a responsive digital cloud through real-time sensing, control, and visualization.
Clouds have long served as a way for humans to understand the world. They once carried meaning as signs of weather, order, and the unknown. In the digital age, the cloud has been redefined as a metaphor for computation and connectivity, supporting data, intelligence, and control while remaining hidden within networks, servers, and cooling infrastructures. Cloud Machine brings these two understandings together, folding ancient ideas of the sky into the contemporary systems that quietly shape everyday life.
The system begins in a neutral physical state, with the ground at ambient temperature and no clouds present. When wireless signals enter the space, WiFi is mapped as a digital condensation nucleus that triggers the formation of a digital cloud. As the terrain temperature is lowered to different thresholds, varying cloud states are generated through WebGL rendering. The cloud then participates in regulating terrain temperature, while changes in temperature and WiFi data together influence the cloud’s next state. Through this continuous loop, clouds, data, and physical conditions adjust one another. The cloud is no longer a passive image but an active technical phenomenon, suggesting a future in which climate, computation, and infrastructure evolve together.
Soft:
-Custom WebGL Application
-Arduino IDE
Hard:
-ESP32
-Peltier Cooling Modules
-Temperature Sensor
-MDDS30 Driver
-Water Pump
-Fans
-Monitor
-Aluminum Plate and Extrusion