New Proposal - Middle East Tug-of-War

Israel has received a lot of media coverage lately regarding the release of Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit and the Palestinian bid for statehood, once again fueling the worldwide conversation between pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian supporters as to each others' right to exist. I feel that Israel is in a very dire position at the moment, with the majority of world supporting creation of a Palestinian state. What the world doesn't realize is that while Israel will recognize a Palestinian state, Palestinians do not acknowledge Israel as a state and ultimately want Israel wiped off the map.

Nestled amidst a sea of Islamic states who generally share an anti-Israel viewpoint, Israel is constantly threatened. The world news media does nothing to help Israel's case. This extends further into the realm of social media. This misrepresentation of Israel in the media has the potential to rip the country apart.

Using an Arduino and several servo motors, I will create a literal representation of social media tearing apart the country. The servo motors will receive input via the Arduino and will receive live data from the social networking site, Twitter. Whenever a certain word is tweeted, the servo motor will turn a certain amount of degrees. The servos will be engaged in a literal tug-of-war, using flags of the different countries as the rope. I have not determined the number of motors to be used yet, but it will be at least two, representing two sides of the conflict.

I have a few different configurations in mind. The initial configuration I had involved two parties tugging between the Israeli flag. However, I feel as if this may oversimplify the conflict. Another configuration I have, and probably my favorite one, is to have motors representing all of the forces against israel equally pulling an Israeli flag, with a motor representing Israel nonexistent, leaving Israel in a helpless position. The third configuration would be israel one one side, with all of the forces against it on the other. It is similar to the first configuration in that it gives Israel a fighting chance, but it is still in a helpless position.

The work I will be doing in the upcoming weeks will be figuring out how twitter and the arduino interact. I found a tutorial for what I think will be helpful, which I will be attempting. If that goes well, the rest of the project should fall into place.