Springs affected by force!? (not sure how to ask)

Question

So I am creating an animation that will show an invisible force (such as a thumb) pushing down on the gold contacts to show that they are set on a spring. I need the gold contact to be slightly pushed in as the force is moving over it. The springs do not need to compress but I think it will add to the realism of the animation. So if this can easily be done I would like to add that feature as well.

I have tried force fields and magnetic field, that didn't seem to do anything (probably using it wrong).

I am not even sure the path I should go down, Do I set the gold contacts as rigid body and get a force field to move them or is it better done as a weight proximity modifier? I just don't know what my next step should be.

Just to clarify:

In the below GIF, imagine the sphere is invisible but everywhere it touches the gold contacts it should slightly push them in, causing the springs to compress. And they should pop back to their original position once the force passes it.

Answer 1

This isn't too hard with Animation Nodes. Once you've installed the add-on, check a couple of things on your pins. First, make sure the "head" has an object origin in the object:

Second, make sure that the spring's object origin is at it's base:

Now, let's open up a Node Editor panel and create a new Animation Nodes tree.

Let's create our array of pegs, like this (you can search for nodes with Ctrl + A):

Explanation: The Distribute Matrices node creates a the locations of a grid of objects with the properties we set, the Object Instancer node creates the objects, then the Object Matrix Output node puts the objects into the scene. You should now have this lovely grid:

Now, lets create our "force sphere". Create a Sphere empty and give it a radius of 4. (You may need to adjust to your scene's scaling).

Now, to make the pins interact, add these nodes:

Explanation: The Object Matrix Input node gets the transformation attributes of the Empty. Decompose Matrix gets the location vector. The Point Distance Falloff node creates a 3D "gradient" radiating from the set origin (the location of the Empty). The Offset Matrix node applies the transformation of (0,0,-1) at the value determined by the Falloff.

It should look like this:

Next, we need to create the springs. Create another Object Instancer node for all the springs:

We want to offset the springs' matrices differently, though:

In the N panel of the second Offset Matrix node, under Advanced Settings, change Rotation: to Local Axis - Local Pivot:

Here is the final result:

Edit:

I've gotten better results with the Empty size set to 1, and the following node setup:

This way, it also responds to scaling the Empty.

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Blend file:

(Requires Animation Nodes)