Category: 2019 LIGHT AND INTERACTIVITY
NEW AGE CANDLE
Assignment: Create an artificial candle using a NeoPixel jewel. Your candle should include a base and a shade or diffuser. Try to capture the colors and behavior of a real candle in programming your candle.
I partnered with Lillian for this project.
After the candle observation session in class I wanted to try the extreme and recreate the natural colors and behavior of a candle in something completely unnatural – to see if the colors and behavior can be stripped down to just the quality of light itself. As a result, I decided to use live edge acrylic.
Idea sketches: *insert photos*
Lillian and I tried etching different patterns on the acrylic to see which one worked best with the light:
After testing these, we went with the lines because the quality of light was most visible and deliberate on those. We turned them into candle shapes of different sizes in order to stack them and make them into a 3D piece.
Learnings on live edge acrylic
- Light on edges are very bright – must find something to cover them because they distract the patterns on the piece itself
- The clearest live edge acrylic is ‘green’ – only able to focus on brightness (might be better for other projects)
- Too little space between each layer make the patterns indistinguishable – must create space in between, each layer should have their own very well positioned lights
- Etching patterns look better when there is higher contrast – lower contrast make the patterns look flat rather than ‘POP’ out as lights
Due to our struggle with the colors on acrylic, we ended up focusing on the brightness of each pixel rather than the colors. I didn’t get around to trying the Color Converter library for this project. However, I will try it as a side project on my own.
For this specific project, I wonder what would happen if I had stripped it down even further and tried to recreate the candle colors and behavior on a plain sheet of matte acrylic (or plain white paper). Also, how would I have programmed it differently if I had focused on its surroundings as well – instead of just the light itself.
Project video:
(The bottom of the acrylic actually looks like a flame)
Code: https://github.com/hellonun/candle/tree/master/candle_acrylic
LIGHTING MOMENT #2
Interruptible LED
Assignment: Create a fading LED attached to a microcontroller. Your LED should be interruptible by either a pushbutton, analog input, or serial input. Your fade speed and fade curve are yours to determine.
Tom went through this exercise with us in class. I was surprised by how much the sine wave makes a difference to the fade. It felt a lot more smooth and natural. I left the class wanting to experiment on what different feelings I can create with the light.
Example code: https://github.com/tigoe/LightProjects/tree/master/SineFade
I listed out some emotions and based on practicality and my state of mind recently (self-portrait), I went with: (1) heavy breathing (2) panic (3) emergency. The interaction is then to put off the fire and let the LED die.
I chose to make the enclosure as minimal as I can to highlight the light effects. I covered the LED in a tissue to diffuse the light and put it in a pingpong ball as it provides a perfectly round shape – evenly distributing the light. In addition, I made it into a character using white wires as the body of the pingpong man.
(1) Heavy breathing
code: https://github.com/hellonun/lightandinteractivity/blob/master/led_heavy_breathing.ino
(2) Panic
code: https://github.com/hellonun/lightandinteractivity/blob/master/led_panic.ino
(3) Emergency
code: https://github.com/hellonun/lightandinteractivity/blob/master/led_emergency.ino
The biggest thing I learned along the way was that light and its movements look different in every condition e.g. an LED vs. an LED in a pingpong ball vs. an LED covered in tissue in a pingpong ball – the effects in these are also very different. Therefore, next time I should make as close to the real setting as I can and take time to test to fine-tune the code.
A bonus – an interesting graph I made while trying to create a breathing effect.