December 12, 2007
Light Garden Final Project Concept
Partner:
Celina Alvarado
putting the project together:
the finalized idea was to have the flowers throbbing at a very low brightness, and as you came close the brightness would increase. simultaneously there would be an image of the same bulb on the screen and it would react in the same way. There would also be a laughter than would increase in volume as the observer got closer.
Since we wanted the reaction to be based on the closeness of the people around it. we researched on ir sensors and on ultrasonic ones. because of the range of these we decided to use an ultrasonic one. the original idea was to use more than one sensor and therefore be able to have different light bulbs have different behaviors, but then we figured out a way to use only one sensor and have the same reaction.
The brightness of the lights would be controlled by midi through arduino while the screen and the giggles were controlled by processing. The first step was to learn to send data to mid. midi uses 31250 while serial uses 9600. the first idea was to work with the software library to work with these, a simpler idea came up later which was to use to different arduinos. the senor was plugged in to the arduino that was conected into midi, and this signal was sent to a second arduino that had a common ground with the first one. The second arduino was then connceted to the laptop, screen and the speaker. Once we started working with midi we realized it was not necessary to use several sensors since midi has several addresses what we did was to send the same data, but use it differently in the arduino code and this was create different reactions in each set of light bulbs.
click for codes
processing images
conceptualization process:
based on the idea of how plants have a reaction to the attention that they are given by human beings, how our flowers would react to observers
idea:
11/12
after talking to tom we decided to use midi to dim the lights and use 120V. changing the copper tubing to a wider, matching the size of the socket entrance, so it wont move and the inside wires get damaged. we will also use thicker wire for 120V.
11/7
After a lot of brainstorming on the content of the screen, we decided to maintain the concept it would have the image of a light bulb just like the others, and have the exact reaction to observers but through a different medium.
11/6
looking into possible materials, costs, time, and space availability, we have changed the concept to become a smaller area, in which the visitor cannot walk through the garden but rather approach it as an interactive sculpture using proximity sensors.
11/6
to create a more dynamic object we thought of including a mini screen instead of one of the light bulbs.
11/5
to create a flower garden made of light bulb flowers. the observer could walk in the garden and using pressure sensors have an interactivity with the flowers through the lighting, dimming and blinking creating an environment in which to be immersed.
Process:material searching.
stems.
looking into materials we came across copper flexible tube which provided a perfect material to create the stems of the flowers, it is strong enough to stand by itself and hold the weight of bulbs, while at the same time having the flexibility to give it an organic look.
light bulbs.
we were looking into several light bulbs, watts, sizes, shapes…decided to use round bulbs which are available in different sizes and fit in a medium (regular) socket.
Problems.
the cost of making the project so big is too high
the light bulbs that we were looking into are all 120V which might be to dangerous to use for this project
copper stems are high electricity transmitter which makes using 120V even harder
Filed by dani's at 1:56 pm under phys comp, icm, ITP
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