Phipps Project

Brandon, Johnny, Nitesh, SooJin

Lighting Themes

  1. Candlelight (flow of the light: edges of arc to center)

Input Options

  1. 12 distance sensors (spaced with each arc, placed in the holes of the brick walls)
    1. each sensor controls the arc-lights on the opposite side of the room
  2. IR Break Beams – how far can the lasers travel?
  3. PIR Motion sensor

Narrative

When a person walks in front of a distance sensor, the arc light immediately associated with it lights up (from the bottom of the arc one by one), while the arc lights adjacent also light up but with less luminosity. The colors will also follow the order of the lights, with the lights that light up first taking on white hues, then yellow, then red. This effect resembles flickering candlelight, enhancing the holiday ambiance. 

Since the sensors will be placed in the spaces inside the brick wall, they should be reasonably obscured and out of the guest’s vision. This should help it to remain untouched. Additionally, since the lighting moves forward, it encourages guests to also move forward through the exhibit.

We wanted to keep things simpler, since any sort of “obvious” or direct interaction would most certainly cause the foot-traffic to slow down, congesting the exhibit. This is something that we really want to avoid, as overcrowding and long wait times, no matter how pretty the lights/features, will ruin the experience. This is especially true if there are children, since they are typically less patient.

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