We started out with the idea of a panel with LED's behind it, which would sense light falling on it and respond by lighting up in return. We came up with a lot of cool ways that the lights could respond to sensor input (for example, if the average light dropped suddenly, such as when the lights in a room were turned off, the lights could brighten momentarily, or moving your hand across the panel would leave a trail of dimness behind due to the shadow). However, when we asked about the feasibility of this project, it turned out that it would be impossible with the control mechanism that we have available (the Cricket). This issue became a theme in the brainstorming process that we went through for the rest of the class period.
Going off of the theme of "art with light and shadow," we brainstormed a series of ideas from "light tic-tac-toe" to "morphing light cube." We did a lot of google image searches to look for inspiration. We eventually narrowed our ideas down to four that seemed most workable.
1. Light Boxes
This idea involves a bright constant light (or lights) inside of boxes made of thin Delrin, nested together. The inner boxes would have designs cut into them, so that the light coming from within would cast shaped shadows on the outer box. These boxes would be able to rotate within each other, for a constantly changing shadow effect. The movements would be controlled by light sensors on each face of the box, so that the box could respond to being moved around, or having one or more faces covered up or lit.
2. Light Fountain
The light fountain would be similar to the original panel idea, but the sensors (a maximum of eight) would be lined up at the bottom of the panel, and when the sensors were activated, either by light or by shade, a "fountain" of light would appear on the panel from long series of LEDs behind it. This improves on the original idea by having only a few sections of LEDs to control, and each section would operate as a unit. The different sections could be different colors, for a gradient effect.
3. Independently moving lights
Another idea similar to the first, but there would only be ~3 lights behind the panel, each attached to a horizontal and vertical string attached to tracks around the edges, so that each light could move independently in any direction. There would be a few sensors as well behind the panel, so that the lights could move toward the darkest section of the panel or rudimentarily interact with each other.
4. Hanging lights
This idea involved several (~3) small spheres encrusted with LEDs (like tiny disco balls) that would hang from the ceiling on a string attached to a motorized winch at the top, so that they could be moved up and down. Each sphere would have a light sensor, so that it would be able to light up in response to darkness (for example, cupping the light in your hands would cause it to be come brighter). We also wanted them to have touch sensors, either in the winch, so they could respond to a tug on the string, or on the sphere itself. These touch sensors would change the sphere between being attracted to and repelled from light, so that the spheres would be able to interact with each other, either chasing or fleeing one another.
We put these four top ideas into a Pugh chart. Our criteria were ease of assembly, ease of programming, time required, interactivity (very important to us!), prettiness aka aesthetics, suitability (does it meet the project requirements?) and feasibility (our nemesis).
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| The Pugh chart |
We quickly discarded "Light Fountain" because we couldn't come up with a way to incorporate a mechanism into the design. "Hanging Lights" and "Light Boxes" came out on top, and we decided on hanging lights because they seemed more fun and interactive.
Hence, we started to refine the hanging light idea. We initially thought they could hang from the ceiling, but then decided it would be even better if they were on a stand, making the assembly like a desk lamp. We then asked again about the feasibility of the design. It turned out that it is nearly impossible to use the Cricket to power both motors and lights, especially bright lights, at the same time. Only the A, B, and C ports generally produce "variable" current, though the sensor ports could be used to produce a small amount of current, and the USB ports can only be used with the bulky single LED boxes we used on the first day of programming cars. We will be testing using sensor ports to power lights on Friday.
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| Improved sketch of hanging lights |
Since the hanging lights idea was seeming less and less likely, we switched our attention to Light Boxes. Brainstorming on Thursday, we came up with the idea of the box being a puzzle, so that the two inner boxes would create words, or a coherent picture, when perfectly aligned as a result of the external lighting conditions. We also expanded this idea to have a pyramid instead of a box that would open up when the inner parts aligned, making it a true puzzle box for storing secret engineering secrets.
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| puzzle box sketch |
On Friday, we will test the LEDs with the sensor ports, and if this fails, we will start developing our light box idea and see how much light will shine through sheets of thin Delrin, or if we need a different material, as well as getting experience with the motors and mechanisms we will be using.
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