Team
Casta Zhu, Alina Liu
Background Story
One of the biggest topics for this year must be COVID-19, in a way, this huge pandemic changed everyone’s life. While some people feel lonely and isolated during the quarantine, other people might really find the time free and relaxed. No matter what, we were all trapped in this space, maybe alone, maybe with family, with someone you love, continuing living our life. It also brought up the idea of social distancing.
But does social distancing only exist during the pandemic? Have you ever be curious about what other people's lives are like when looking at a lighted window? The enclosed space, the shadows on the curtain can already tell so many stories.
Idea Description
To make an interactive light installation that has several light 'cells'. Each cell will light up when audiences get closer to it and reveal a person's life in the cell. When the light inside is off, the audience can see nothing but a blank light shade.
Progress
01 visual effect testing
After we have the idea decided, we started to use black and white paper to do some simple prototypes, to see if the light effect was what we expected. The bottom two images show shadows of a white paper colored black(left) and a cut-off white paper on the outside shader(right).
02 graphic creating
Ideally, we wanted each light 'cell' to have different characteristics, showing they are different people and have a different life. We used some well-marked furniture, like the piano, mini greenhouse to make the characteristics obvious, even with only this black paper-cut silhouette.
03 code/parts testing
We mainly had the transistor lab and the distance sensor lab as our reference. The sensor is connected to a digital pin to send the transistor a voltage to turn the light on and off.
We initially used a distance sensor, a 5v LED, a MOSFET, and a Nano board. We realized the circuit it's always a bit unstable compare to an Uno board. After we had everything connected and tested, suddenly the circuit stopped working without us changing anything. We then reconnected the circuit but never got the same circuit to work. The MOSFET was somehow not working because it would stay on even there is no voltage through the gate. Since that was the only MOSFET we have, we had to switch to an NPN transistor
04 final assembly
To get a better presentation result, we took apart an electrical turntable, so we can both use its motor and fit our parts inside its base.
The graphic inside was printed on cardstock and then rolled into a cylinder. The outside shader was made of white paper, with a thin cotton paper covered around it to give it a better texture.