Manitas a la Obra

November 2025
3D PrintingArduinoUltrasonic SensorProjectorSpeaker

About This Project

Manitas a la Obra is an interactive art installation exploring the agricultural landscape, an aspect of life that often gets overlooked, with the immigrant community making up most of the workforce and each individual bringing their own unique story. The piece centers on a 3D-printed lettuce head rigged with an ultrasonic sensor. Lifting the lettuce and moving it up and down is detected by the sensor, which triggers a synchronized projector and speaker sequence, turning a simple, familiar farming motion into a moment of unexpected discovery. Built with Arduino to read the ultrasonic sensor and drive the projector and speaker outputs, the installation combines 3D printing, embedded electronics, and multimedia to create a tactile, sensory experience around a subject that rarely gets this kind of attention.

Technical Challenges

Calibrating the ultrasonic sensor to reliably detect the lifting motion without false triggers, synchronizing the projector and speaker output with the physical interaction, and housing the electronics discreetly inside a 3D-printed prop

What I Learned

Learned to integrate ultrasonic sensing with multimedia output on Arduino, gained experience 3D printing functional props, and explored how physical interaction design can be used to tell a social and cultural story

Project Goal

Built an interactive art installation that uses a 3D-printed prop and sensing to spotlight the immigrant farmworkers behind the agricultural workforce.

Engineering Focus

Focused on ultrasonic motion sensing, Arduino-driven multimedia triggering, and integrating electronics into a 3D-printed physical interface.

Skills Used

3D Printing, Arduino, Ultrasonic Sensor, Projector, Speaker