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Background info on light project

Light: prototype

Info on solar components,
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Light Controller/Light Switch

TEAM: Jae In Lee, Michael Jefferson, Doria Fan

ASSIGNMENT: A light controller/light switch designed for a specific context which offers a tactile experience that enhances the context and is closely related to the visual effect of the light controlled. You should use this assignment to explore the sensation of touch.

Concept/Thoughts

A light can: 1) provide function (allowing us to see in the dark) 2) set the ambience 3) and be of aesthetic value. Lighting is often considered furniture. Once you buy it and put in place, you usually don't change it around. Therefore, it'd be nice to have an interactive light, or something we could change around.

Our ultimate light source is the sun. An overlooked but very common light controller/light switch is the window shade (or blind). You can control the amount of light to let in or filter. It takes up a massive amount of real estate in our rooms, on our walls. When the shades are drawn, to filter out light or provide privacy, we're left with a blank canvas. Or, a big tapestry (unattractive example below) or swath of color -- not terribly interesting. It'd be nice to make better use of this canvas.

Blinds provide us with another level of variation -- aside from the up and down of a shade, we can control how much light to let in, by pivoting the rod to control the angle of the blinds..

This is fine and dandy in the daytime...

But at night, the sun is gone, you lose a level of interaction with your shade since your light source has turned off for the night. Nightime is when you most need light.

We would like to make ourwindow shade an iinteractive light. Once the shade has been drawn, using the rod (common convention with blinds), we can turn on and adjust the level of light, as you would with blinds and the sunlight. As you turn the light brighter, the stripes will get wider. We are planning on attaching a rotary potentiometer (analog controller) to the rod. We will sew in el-panels, el-wires, or LED into a fabric shade, sandwiched between the fabric, so it's a subtle reveal. Other options may be to use luminescent fabric (see picture).

Some links to possible materials:
• luminescent fabric
• glowire
• electroluminescent strips.