Concept
Tunnel cube is an interactive project as an attempt to recreate the experience of cars driving through tunnels. When I was a kid, sitting in the backseat of my dad’s car, I was always fascinated by the lights and shadows cast on the tunnel because of the car lights. For this cube, the light follows the ball as it passes through the tunnel, and eventually comes out from the other side.
Process
In the cube, there is a slight ramp that makes the ball roll. At the end of the ramp, I attached a VL530X time of flight sensor to locate the ball while it rolls. And using this distance value, I map it to each individual Neopixel, which is attached to the outer plane of the box. Regarding fabrication, my biggest challenge comes from the linear direction of VL530X. Since it uses laser light for proximity sensing, the direction has to be very specific for it to work properly.
To make the transition of light smoother, I also used the average function in one of the examples from last week.
