Very thought through and personalized project. Watching the videos from the project website, I liked how the team tried hard to incorporate her original workflow and techniques into the new device. Impressive!
To spare everyone details at the start of the thread, I didn't really describe what I was planning to use the motorized faders for. Coming on about a year ago now, I had the idea to make a table which displayed a 3D raised relief map from pillars that could be raised to various heights. The landscape would be approximated by the pillars and they could be programmed so that the table would be able to first display Mount Everest, China and then morph into Crater Lake, USA or something like that. This project was well beyond my reach since I would describe myself as a beginner programmer (Python). Over the last few months, I have begun assembling a team and the project seems to be getting closer, though is still a very long term goal with opportunity for setbacks. I have created a program which converts DEM files (GIS elevation files) into a readable format for something like an Arduino or small computer to read, and am now headed towards more of the hardware side of the project. We have been searching for the best way to drive the display of the table, and have gone through many different theoretical variations, though have not put many into practice. We came to the motorized faders because of a project out of MIT Tangible Media Group that seems somewhat similar to what we are looking to accomplish.
If you or anyone else has better solutions for the motion of the table, the team is very receptive to suggestions. Or if you are interested in learning more about the project, you can PM me. I will attach the project from MIT and some of our projects designs to this post.
MIT inFORM: https://tangible.media.mit.edu/project/inform/
3D printed models of our TopoTable at different pixel densities (15x15, 30x30, 60x60):
