Archives for March 2024

This assignment is probably the most hands-on one in this class. It basically asks us to use the print outs of the models of one cam, one crank and one gear to make mechanisms and decorate them as we wish. Nevertheless, though seemed to be very easy, we actually encountered a lot of problems during the building process.

First of all, we started to build the mechanisms according to the instructions in the provided pdf document. Though my partner and I were both trying our best, there were always little details that we failed to carry out 100% perfectly. The accumulative effect of such little imperfections led to the intermittent movements of the mechanisms later on when we were testing them, but we discovered it too late. Luckily, overall the little gadgets worked well, and since we discovered during the presentation that almost every group had the same problem as we did, we started to realize that this may be an intrinsic limitation of paper mechanisms. Nevertheless, we do have to pay more attention in the future so as to carry out the processes in a better manner.

One of the small tricks that I found to be useful was that when cutting the teeth on the gears, I could use the knife to cut the inner lines first and then use the scissors to cut other lines, instead of sticking to the scissors in the beginning which would make the junction parts rough.

These two parts below were EXTREMELY difficult to be glued together, and even a tiny error could result in the flawed motion of the gears.

Another tip that I found helpful was that when folding a narrow piece of paper, I could use a ruler as an external tool. This saved a lot of time and added to the flatness of the surfaces.

After we have finished the building part, we started to generate ideas about decoration. I suddenly thought of the music box, a childhood toy whose appearance looks similar to these mechanisms because their main parts are both driven by the manual rotation of a handle. Therefore, we started to paint them, with the first one being designed as a doll and a teddy bear dancing with each other, the second one a basketball trying to reach the hoop, and the third one a train running across the vast field. However, a disaster nearly happened due to my inattention to the common sense that paints need time to dry, and wet paints can glue one paper part onto another. Fortunately, I separated them carefully and they started to function again.

Overall, this assignment brought us a lot of fun while introducing the basic mechanisms to us effectively at the same time. I really enjoyed working on these cute paper mechanisms!

 

 

Dangling

Jingchen Gao

I. Project description

My inspiration of this project was that I wanted to create an installation which goes beyond a still sculpture and involves the interaction and participation of the audience. Therefore, I had come up with the idea of hanging some light objects from the ceiling and inviting people to walk through them. This notion further inspired me that I could use this installation to symbolize the different obstacles that we would
encounter in our lives, such as the pressure of school application, difficult relationships with others, problems in raising children and so on. I intended to create abstract patterns and use various external decorations such as irregular pieces of glass and cotton to make these dangling objects. After talking to my professor, I decided not to make the shapes too concrete to represent the meanings I impose on them. Instead, I would like to use the changes in color and brightness to invoke the audiences’ own interpretation of my light installation.

My initial intention was that I would like to hang the light objects from the ceiling, and fix the whole wiring part near the ceiling so that people wouldn’t be bothered by the wires on the ground. What’s more, I also wanted to introduce air blowers to add motion to my installation. By doing this, people will need to change their positions when interacting with this project so that they wouldn’t be hit by the objects hanging from above. This adds more interaction to the users’ experience and creates a change in space over time.

II. Perspective and Context

One thing that inspired me the most during my previous learning is the term synesthesia, indicating that some people may have the ability to link one (or more) sensory with another, thus having a transaction between different perceptions. This is one of the most important reasons for me to try to introduce the air blower and create physical motion in my project, because by doing that my intention is that the body movements and vision of the audience can be related together, thus form a similar effect as synesthesia does to people who have it.

Another thing that I was reminded of is the phenomenology of Maurice Merleau-Ponty. The most crucial feature of this philosophy is that it prioritizes the experiences of individuals, and argues that the aesthetics of people comes from their own experiences of relevant conditions. I didn’t realize that until my professor suggested me in his feedback on my proposal that I should not create too concrete things which display exactly the concepts I wanted to convey. Instead, I should work on the variation of the dangling objects and leave room for the audience to generate their own interpretations. 

In general, my initial purpose was to create an installation of a series of dangling objects, with each of them displaying a different light effect. Meanwhile, by introducing the kinetic factor of air blower, I intended to engage the audience in the interaction with my project and invoke their feeling similar to synesthesia and their subjective understanding of the dangling objects that I created.

III. Development & Technical Implementation

I started from the physical fabrication and installation part which I considered to be the foundation of the coding and the wiring parts. As my idea was to create several objects which are distinctive from each other, I came up with different ideas about how to make each of them and started separately. I started with one half of a tube made by mirrors that I ordered on Taobao, and intertwined a yellow EL wire onto it. After that, I built several other objects made by materials that either I had or I ordered  on Taobao to finish this physical creation part. During this process, I utilized laser cutting, and enhanced my ability of hands-on work by using pliers to bend iron wires, polishing acrylic boards with sandpaper, folding paper into various shapes, and so on. These are the abilities that I would never achieve if I didn’t do these hands-on works, and I appreciate that a lot.

Having finished this part, I started to build the circuit of this project. I referred to the class slides and combined the circuit of all objects in one breadboard. One thing that I tried out at this stage was that I tried to use a transistor for several lighting objects. It seemed to work well in the beginning, so I just kept it and used the glue gun to secure the whole circuit.

Then, I wrote the code for my project. The code was easy, because both my professor and I thought that it would be better if I focus more on the shapes and looks of the objects instead of the complexity of the code. Therefore, I used basically the “blink” and “fade” function in the Arduino to light up my objects.

//pick a plywood, drill four holes, build the circuit and glue everything together!
//dont forget about the air blower!!!

//white neon tube: connected directly to the power supply (breadboard 1)
//yellow neon tube: fade 6 (breadboard 1)
//green neon tube: fade 10 (breadboard 1)
//EL wire: blink 9 (breadboard 1)
//red neon tube: blink 5 (breadboard 2)
//halogen bulb 1 (feather): blink 11 (breadboard 2)
//halogen bulb 2 (glass box): connected directly to the power supply (breadboard 2)
//analog LED strip : fade 3 (breadboard 2)


int brightness = 0;
int fadeAmount1 = 5;
int fadeAmount2 = 5;
int fadeAmount3 = 5;

void setup() {
  pinMode(6, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(5, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(3, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(11, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(10, OUTPUT);
  pinMode(9, OUTPUT);
}

void loop() {
  analogWrite(6, brightness);
  brightness = brightness + fadeAmount1;
  if (brightness <= 0 || brightness >= 255) {
    fadeAmount1 = -fadeAmount1;
  }
  delay(30);

  analogWrite(10, brightness);
  brightness = brightness + fadeAmount2;
  if (brightness <= 0 || brightness >= 255) {
    fadeAmount2 = -fadeAmount2;
  }
  delay(30);

  digitalWrite(9, HIGH);
  delay(1000);
  digitalWrite(9, LOW);
  delay(1000);

  digitalWrite(5, HIGH);
  delay(1000);
  digitalWrite(5, LOW);
  delay(1000);

  digitalWrite(11, HIGH);
  delay(1000);
  digitalWrite(11, LOW);
  delay(1000);

  digitalWrite(9, HIGH);
  delay(1000);
  digitalWrite(9, LOW);
  delay(100);

  analogWrite(3, brightness);
  brightness = brightness + fadeAmount3;
  if (brightness <= 0 || brightness >= 255) {
    fadeAmount3 = -fadeAmount3;
  }
  delay(30);
}

Here is the link to my Arduino code in the Google Drive folder:

https://drive.google.com/drive/folders/1k21VBfOEJiNWq-h65GKsnVgKdZsPIJ8s

However, there were a lot of problems before the final presentation due to the timing problem. First of all, some of the objects just stopped working before the final presentation. Later when I was disassembling the project, I found out that it was because one transistor burnt out before the presentation starts, which proved that one transistor may not be able to function several objects at the same time. Meanwhile, there were also some attachment problems, for example the words attached to one of the neon tubes would only light the tube up at one certain angle. All of these are problems that I should pay attention to in the future.

When it comes to the final implementation, basically I just hang my installation from the ceiling, and the audience could sit around it and look at it when the lights changed. The six objects changed at their own rhythm both in light and in motion, but altogether they formed a space where all kinds of light generated by neon tubes, halogen light bulbs and analog LED strips echoed with each other and generated a place where all of us could sit down , rest for a while and reflect back upon our own memories and generate our own understanding of the installation as a whole.

IV. Presentation

The biggest problem before or during presentation was that I was running out of time. I didn’t even start to hang the objects onto the ceiling before the class starts. Meanwhile, when I was carrying out the last step of installation, a lot of things went wrong. When my presentation started, at first the green neon tube didn’t turn on, but later on it functioned in the way I expected it to do, and one white neon tube didn’t turn on from beginning to end. Besides, I didn’t had sufficient time to hang the board with my computer and all the wires on it to the ceiling, which greatly affected the visual experience of the installation itself. One comment given by my professor was that he liked the black nylon ropes I used to hang the dangling objects. This corresponded with my initial intention of informing my audience that the objects were hang from the ceiling, not floating in the air, and is the main reason why I didn’t choose those thinner and transparent ropes to hang my objects. Another suggestion mentioned by one of my classmates is that one of the objects that I coded to blink has too much time to stay in the dark, and this does not align with most other objects which were either fading or staying still. She suggested that I could make that object light up longer, and that would also do good to the visual effect. I consider both comments really helpful and hope to improve more in the future.

When it comes to the air blower, I tried it in advance but it turned out that it was way too noisy and could even surpass my own voice. Nevertheless, during the presentation, as the professor and some of my classmates touched either the ropes or the objects, the installation turned out not to be still and encompassed some motion, which coincidentally melted my initial expectations.

The biggest thing I learnt during this experience was that I should have started earlier in order to make more space for me to make mistakes. Next time I wish I could come up with a more detailed plan about what to do and when to finish so that things wouldn’t end up all in a mess!

Below are some of the photos and videos of my project:

 

V. Conclusion

In general, this project taught me a lot in not only the domain of knowledge and physical fabrication but also the arrangement of time and energy. The research process where I came up with the initial idea went too smooth for me to evaluate the difficulty of this project correctly. I had greatly underestimated the time required for me to finish this project completely and I ended up running out of time. In a word, I was a bit too ambitious in the beginning, but the reality was that I had too much work during the mid-term that I didn’t spend as much time as I anticipated in advance to start earlier. This is indeed something I would like to improve in the future.

Nevertheless, I learned quite a lot during the creation and execution processes of this project. Not only did I improve my fabrication skills and tried coding all by myself for the first time and received success, but I also achieved my ambition in a complete though not perfect way. Therefore, I would like to cherish what I have gained from this precious experience and try to be more mature when carrying out my projects in the future!

This assignment provided me with a precious opportunity to work on the DMX PAR lights which I previously thought that I could only see on the stage. During the working process, we brainstormed about the idea that we would like to address, learned how to install the lights, and gained practical knowledge of coding the lights. It was fun and meaningful to work in a group of six, and I learned how to cooperate with others throughout our communication and collaboration.

We started on Sunday afternoon when all of us gathered together at school to brainstorm ideas of the project. One of our group members suggested that we could use a wood stick to symbolize the sundial, whose history can be traced back to thousands of years ago. Her starting point was that as the lights could not move automatically in either direction or position, we needed to figure out a method to show the change in position of a certain object. However, as it was too troublesome to carry an object in person and move around the room, we could utilize the variation of the shadow in both colors and positions to make our project more intriguing. Therefore, we reached a consensus at this point that we were going to fix a wood stick on the ground and code the lights so that their colors and the rhythm of the whole composition could affect the shadow of the stick and hence make the light show more interesting.

Our interpretation of this project was that as the speed of color change goes from slow to fast, it could represent our school life which is relaxing at first but becomes more and more tense as time flows. At the end of the semester everyone is busy multitasking and we have little time left for ourselves. Meanwhile, the colors can also represent our hobbies and the happy moments in our daily life. As the position of the shadow shifts, our lives proceed at our own speeds as well.

 

After we had made our plan about the assignment, we started to work separately. I participated in the whole process as an assistant in our group. Firstly, another group member and I met together on Tuesday afternoon to complete the physical fabrication part. We first cut the bottom part of our installation under the help of the Fabrication Lab Manager. In this process, both of us were exposed to a new electric saw that we had never seen or used before. Then, we utilized both abrasive paper and the drill to levigate the bottom part of the stick so that it could fit into the hole we dug previously on the pedestal. 

After we had finished the physical fabrication, we started to work on the code, which was the most crucial part of this assignment. One member in our group finished the draft code earlier that day and we were revising that code in the evening. We utilized the example code, what we had learned in class and our existing knowledge to write the code. The biggest problem we encountered, to our surprise, was that the term “dimmer” in the code actually meant “brightness” rather than “to dim”. We recognized this when we were setting the value of the dimmer. We first set it to be 0, because in our expectation the light would become more and more dim as the number grows. However, after uploading the code, the light just wouldn’t turn on. After trying multiple times, we finally recognized that if we want the lights to light up we should set the value of the dimmer to 255. This is definitely a precious lesson that we learned from this experiment, and all of us cheered after seeing that the lights finally worked according to our initial plan.

Below is the video of the final version. I am very grateful for this precious opportunity for group work and access to DMX PAR lights!

 

Below is the final code:

/*
 * 3 DMX controlled LED Par Light example
 * 
 * In this example we're using 3 par lights model Chauvet DJ Eve P-130 RGB
 * Each light can have up to 9 DMX channels to control different
 * functionality of the light. For an overview of the channels
 * look at https://open-fixture-library.org/chauvet-dj/eve-p-130-rgb
 * 
 * For this example the lights should be set to 9 channel DMX mode
 * on the light itself. And, light1 should start at DMX channel 1,
 * light2 at DMX channel 11, and light3 at DMX channel 21.
 * 
 * Each channel can be a value between 0 - 255, which is exactly what
 * the 'byte' datatype can hold. Below, a variable of the byte datatype
 * is declared for each channel of each of the three lights.
 * 
 * Not all of the channels will be usefull in every use case, so don't 
 * worry about the ones that you're not going to use.
 * 
 */

// 9 variables for the DMX channels of light 1
byte light1Dimmer = 0;
byte light1Red = 0;
byte light1Green = 0;
byte light1Blue = 0;
byte light1ColorMacros = 0;
byte light1Strobe = 0;
byte light1AutoPrograms = 0;
byte light1ProgSpeedSoundSens = 0;
byte light1DimmerSpeedMode = 0;

// 9 variables for the DMX channels of light 2
byte light2Dimmer = 0;
byte light2Red = 0;
byte light2Green = 0;
byte light2Blue = 0;
byte light2ColorMacros = 0;
byte light2Strobe = 0;
byte light2AutoPrograms = 0;
byte light2ProgSpeedSoundSens = 0;
byte light2DimmerSpeedMode = 0;

// 9 variables for the DMX channels of light 3
byte light3Dimmer = 0;
byte light3Red = 0;
byte light3Green = 0;
byte light3Blue = 0;
byte light3ColorMacros = 0;
byte light3Strobe = 0;
byte light3AutoPrograms = 0;
byte light3ProgSpeedSoundSens = 0;
byte light3DimmerSpeedMode = 0;

bool stage3shown = false;



// include the DMX library
#include 

// set the maximum amount of channels we'll need
// each light will run 9 DMX channels so 27 is enough
#define DMX_MASTER_CHANNELS 27

// pin number to change read or write mode on the shield
#define RXEN_PIN 2

// configure a DMX master controller, the master controller
// will use the RXEN_PIN to control its write operation on the bus
DMX_Master dmx_master(DMX_MASTER_CHANNELS, RXEN_PIN);



void setup() {

  // Enable DMX master interface and start transmitting
  dmx_master.enable();

  // To be extra safe,
  // let's set channel 1 - 30 to off (0) to start with
  dmx_master.setChannelRange(1, 30, 0);
}

void loop() {
  // In loop we can modify the values of the variables
  // to make the lights do what we want

  //1st period: only one light would be turn on
  //first turn: red, blue, green
  // light1 - red

  //  if(!lightCleared){
  //  clearLight();
  //  }


  if (!stage3shown) {
    delay(2000);
    stage1Red();
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(5000);

    stage1Green();
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(2500);

    stage1Blue();
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(2500);

    stage1Yellow();
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(2500);

    stage1Purple();
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(2500);


    stage1GreenBlue();
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(2500);


    light1Red = 255;
    light1Green = 153;
    light1Blue = 18;

    light2Red = 173;
    light2Green = 255;
    light2Blue = 47;

    light1Dimmer = 255;
    light2Dimmer = 255;
    light3Dimmer = 0;
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(5000);

    light2Red = 216;
    light2Green = 191;
    light2Blue = 216;

    light3Red = 176;
    light3Green = 224;
    light3Blue = 230;

    light1Dimmer = 0;
    light2Dimmer = 255;
    light3Dimmer = 255;
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(5000);

    light3Red = 255;
    light3Green = 182;
    light3Blue = 193;
    light1Red = 0;
    light1Green = 245;
    light1Blue = 255;
    light3Dimmer = 255;
    light1Dimmer = 255;

    light1Dimmer = 255;
    light2Dimmer = 0;
    light3Dimmer = 255;
    writeDMXdata();
    delay(5000);
    stage3shown = true;
  } else {
    stage3();
  }
}

void stage3() {

  light1Red = random(0, 255);
  light1Green = random(0, 255);
  light1Blue = random(0, 255);

  light2Red = random(0, 255);
  light2Green = random(0, 255);
  light2Blue = random(0, 255);

  light3Red = random(0, 255);
  light3Green = random(0, 255);
  light3Blue = random(0, 255);

  light1Dimmer = 255;
  light2Dimmer = 255;
  light3Dimmer = 255;

  writeDMXdata();
  delay(400);
}



//2nd period: 2 lights are turned on together
//还没设颜色
//1+2

/*
 

  
  delay(500);

//.....这里copy and paste and change 上面一段就行，设计一下颜色？
//arrange 灯的位置，两个一起亮的时候是时间点，也可以讲讲concept和故事？颜色-故事-> any connections?


//3rd period: 3 lights are turned on together, random color, speed++

 


  light1Red = random(0,255);
  light1Green = random(0,255);
  light1Blue = random(0,255);

  light2Red = random(0,255);
  light2Green = random(0,255);
  light2Blue = random(0,255);

  light3Red = random(0,255);
  light3Green = random(0,255);
  light3Blue = random(0,255);
  
  light1Dimmer += 2;
  light2Dimmer += 2;
  light3Dimmer += 2;


  light1Red = random(0,255);
  light1Green = random(0,255);
  light1Blue = random(0,255);

  light2Red = random(0,255);
  light2Green = random(0,255);
  light2Blue = random(0,255);

  light3Red = random(0,255);
  light3Green = random(0,255);
  light3Blue = random(0,255);
  
  light1Dimmer += 3;
  light2Dimmer += 3;
  light3Dimmer += 3;








  // write the DMX data to the lights
  // see the function declaration below
  writeDMXdata();

  delay(50);
  */
//}



void stage1Red() {
  light1Red = 255;
  light1Green = 0;
  light1Blue = 0;
  light2Red = 0;
  light2Green = 0;
  light2Blue = 0;
  light3Red = 0;
  light3Green = 0;
  light3Blue = 0;
  light1Dimmer = 255;
}

void stage1Green() {
  light1Red = 0;
  light1Green = 0;
  light1Blue = 0;
  light2Red = 0;
  light2Green = 255;
  light2Blue = 0;
  light3Red = 0;
  light3Green = 0;
  light3Blue = 0;
  light2Dimmer = 255;
}

void stage1Blue() {
  light1Red = 0;
  light1Green = 0;
  light1Blue = 0;

  light2Red = 0;
  light2Green = 0;
  light2Blue = 0;
  light3Red = 0;
  light3Green = 0;
  light3Blue = 255;

  light3Dimmer = 255;
}

void stage1Yellow() {
  light1Red = 255;
  light1Green = 255;
  light1Blue = 0;

  light2Red = 0;
  light2Green = 0;
  light2Blue = 0;
  light3Red = 0;
  light3Green = 0;
  light3Blue = 0;

  light1Dimmer = 255;
}

void stage1Purple() {
  light1Red = 0;
  light1Green = 0;
  light1Blue = 0;

  light2Red = 255;
  light2Green = 0;
  light2Blue = 255;
  light3Red = 0;
  light3Green = 0;
  light3Blue = 0;

  light2Dimmer = 255;
}


void stage1GreenBlue() {
  light1Red = 0;
  light1Green = 0;
  light1Blue = 0;

  light2Red = 0;
  light2Green = 0;
  light2Blue = 0;
  light3Red = 0;
  light3Green = 255;
  light3Blue = 255;

  light3Dimmer = 255;
}




/*
 * This function writes all the values of the variables to
 * the DMX shield which then passes them on to the 
 * the apporpriate channels on the lights.
 * 
 * All the lights should be set to 9-channel DMX mode
 * Light1 has to start on DMX channel 1
 * Light2 has to start on DMX channel 11
 * Light3 has to start on DMX channel 21
 */
void writeDMXdata() {
  // write to channel 1-9 for light1
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(1, light1Dimmer);  // 亮度
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(2, light1Red);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(3, light1Green);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(4, light1Blue);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(5, light1ColorMacros);  // 光宏
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(6, light1Strobe);       //频闪
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(7, light1AutoPrograms);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(8, light1ProgSpeedSoundSens);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(9, light1DimmerSpeedMode);

  // write to channel 11-19 for light2
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(11, light2Dimmer);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(12, light2Red);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(13, light2Green);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(14, light2Blue);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(15, light2ColorMacros);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(16, light2Strobe);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(17, light2AutoPrograms);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(18, light2ProgSpeedSoundSens);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(19, light2DimmerSpeedMode);

  // write to channel 21-29 for light3
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(21, light3Dimmer);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(22, light3Red);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(23, light3Green);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(24, light3Blue);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(25, light3ColorMacros);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(26, light3Strobe);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(27, light3AutoPrograms);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(28, light3ProgSpeedSoundSens);
  dmx_master.setChannelValue(29, light3DimmerSpeedMode);
} 

Our idea for this project is to use the water to create water ripples on the wall in order to create an intriguing light effect. Our inspiration came from my partner when she sent me a video of her using the smartphone flashlight and a water bottle to create some light effects. After watching this video, we decided to work on this idea and use the casting of the water ripples on the walls to make the light fill the entire room.

 

At first, our proposal was to combine two bottles together, put the light installation within the inner bottle and fill the space between the two bottles with water. We spent some time building our bottle installation, and tried different methods such as the lighter and glue gun to fill the gap between the two bottles.

However, it kept leaking so we had to change our plan. Not only did we need a waterproof box for adding water to our project, but we also needed a bigger space for installing the light bulb and the RGB strip. Therefore, I suggested that we could use two separate semi-enclosed acrylic boxes created by laser cutting for our project. We can put one onto the other, fill water into the upper one and put our light installation in the lower one.

After we have cut the transparent boxes, we started to paste the RGB strip inside the box so that it could be fixed. At this point, my partner had come up with the idea that we could also introduce straws and water-soluble pigment into our project so that the ripples projected on the ceiling could be more colorful. And by adding pigment to water and using the straw to blow on the water, our classmates could have more interaction with our project and become more engaged during our presentation.

When choosing the lighting techniques, we first decided to only use the analog RGB strip and make its color blue. However, when testing its effect before class, we found out that its brightness was not enough to project the colorful water ripples onto the ceiling, which differed a lot from our original inspiration, since the effect created by a smartphone flashlight was even stronger than that of the RGB strip. Therefore, we made up our mind to introduce a halogen light bulb to provide more brightness. In the end, we used both the analog RGB strip and the halogen light bulb to create a mixed effect for our project. We simply set the color of the RGB strip blue and lit the light bulb up without any special lighting effects, because we wanted people to focus more on our installation and the interaction with water. 

During the in-class presentation, we displayed both our original idea, which is the (leaking) bottle, and our final installation. The two videos can be seen below.

 

In fact, we have encountered a lot of challenges and difficulties during our process of setting things up. Firstly, we used my analog RGB strip at first, but somehow it just didn’t work. Hence, we spent a lot of time checking and revising the code but nothing worked out. Therefore, we switched to my partner’s strip and it worked quite well. Our guess was that it was because she soldered the wires onto her strip while I used the clip, so maybe mine had a bad attachment. Secondly, we tried hard to prevent the laser-cut boxes from leaking, but in the end it was still not 100% waterproof. The physical installation part was also tiring because the boards were large and the hot glue dries really quickly, so I had trouble glueing two boards together. 

Though the building process was challenging, both of us gained a lot during this precious experience and we also enhanced our ability of tackling unexpected problems. Personally, I enjoy the working experience of this project a lot, and I was really amazed by the final effect when all the lights were off and the water ripples were shone by the light bulbs!