We had to create an abstraction of the Aurora Borealis, so we abstracted the colors and the movement to create an installation that responds to the movement of a person the way atoms in Earth's atmosphere respond to charged particles from the sun, creating the Aurora Borealis. 
We decided to create translucent boxes out of acrylic and put LED lights in them. The acrylic and the position of the LEDs diffused the light in a very beautiful way that was similar to the glow of the real Northern Lights. We wanted the boxes to move in a wavy motion like the Northern lights do, so we used a Servo to move a line of the boxes. 
 

The reason for our project was to create an abstraction that moves and had the same colors as the Northern Lights. We did this by using a Servo, acrylic boxes, and LED's to recreate the movement and the colors of the Aurora Borealis. In our project, we had a long wooden board that held up the boxes. On one end it had a screw, and on the other it had a Servo. The Servo was connected to one box, and it would move that box back and forth, therefore also moving all the boxes back and forth. At the same end as the Servo was the power strip and the LED's. The LED's went through all the boxes on the top, creating light that cast downward on the the person standing underneath. Also at the end with the Servo was a Ultrasonic sensor. The sensor would sense whenever a person went underneath our project, and would light up and and move only when triggered. At the beginning of our project, we didn't think hinges were necessary, but we later decided to use them. We created many cardboard boxes; some vertical, some horizontal; some with holes for LED's, some without; some with room to move the boxes ninety degrees, some without. It was a very long process, but because of our many iterations, our project came out well. There were some challenges, however. One, was that because we had been using cardboard the whole time, we did not account for how heavy the acrylic was going to be. The Servo had a hard time moving the boxes, and therefore our project had more of a stuttering motion, instead of a wavy one. A second challenge was that the soldering on our LED's was not good at all, so we ended up having to use just a strip of uninterrupted LED's, and cover up the lights that were showing.

For this iteration, instead of having just cardboard thinly cut in places, we created our first set of boxes. We used boxdesigner.com to make vertical boxes using notching. We attached the boxes using screws. We would put the lights down the sides of the boxes. We ended up not using this version for a few different reasons. One was that the motion was very limited, and it was not able to move in the wavy motion. Another, was that we decided the lights would look more realistic coming from the top, rather than the side. It would have more of a glow effect and be more representative of the Northern Lights. We changed a lot of features for the next iteration.

This iteration is one step before our final cut. We made the boxes horizontal and planned to have the lights coming from the top. There were still a few technical changes that we needed after this iteration, though. We had to alter the Rhino sketch to accommodate space for the top and bottom pieces so they didn't stick up as they do in this picture. We also made them more visually appealing by making end pieces and we added screw holes for the servo. The only other thing we changed from this version for the final was changing the box dimensions from cardboard width to acrylic width.

The purpose of our project is to capture the essence of lava in the form of a light fixture. To do this, we created a hexagonal fixture with moving parts that are triggered to show the juxtaposition between the solid rocks that lava creates and the free-flowing movement of hot lava. We accomplished this by making eight moving arms for our light fixture that create a hexagon shape when turned off but move freely and randomly when turned on. 

Natural phenomena can be beautiful. Yet, many people don't have the chance to experience rare occurrences in real life. By making a light fixture that mimics some of the aspects of lava, we're attempting to make a fairly inaccessible phenomenon more accessible. By using the colors of lava and mimicking the slow flowing movement, we hope to artistically represent some of the most beautiful aspects of lava. When the light fixture is off, it rests in a hexagonal shape, representing the harsh solid shapes of cooled lava. But when the fixture is turned on, it lights up in orange begins slowly moving the arms randomly. The arms move in different directions: up/down and side to side, creating uncertainty in the movement they will produce.

Our project began with the idea of creating a geometric base with colored tubes running through it to represent the interesting curved patterns that lava flow creates. However, we eventually decided that the tubes would clutter the project and that we could actually represent the flow of lava with the original base we had designed. After making this decision, we focused on the mechanical movements of the base "arms" and how this movement could mimic the slow flow of lava.

The problems we ran into throughout this project revolved around the mechanical movement we wanted to achieve. While working on the mechanisms we ran into problems with creating the shape we wanted to achieve with the correct angles. Since the basic code we wrote made the servos spin freely, we had some trouble figuring out how to design the mechanism to stop at the correct angle when the light fixture was turned off. This is still an issue we're working through that probably can be fixed in the code. 

Another issue we ran into was diffusing the light in a simple way that could mimic lava. We initially thought it would be interesting to use acrylic, but ended up running some tests with wax paper and normal printer paper as well. We eventually decided that printer paper was the easiest to use while still giving us the light effect we were looking for. This decision was primarily based on our time constraints. However, we still think that using acrylic in some way could make the light fixture look more professional. 

Throughout the whole project, we went through a couple design iterations, two of which are shown in the slideshow above. The first iteration shown was our second prototype after we decided we wanted to focus on the base shape rather than include winding tubes. After finalizing this prototype, we could feedback from the coaches that we needed to simulate the movement we were envisioning in the final project. So, we then took apart the prototype and began the next iteration where all the arm pieces could be moved. The movement aspects were done using screws and bending cardboard, creating a rudimentary simulation of what our mechanisms would do. After completing this iteration, we mostly focused on the individual arm mechanisms, prototyping those over and over again. In the end, we spent most of our time working on the movement aspect of our project and not changing the original design shown in the second iteration.