Production Process: Physical Light Installation

Production of Flowers

I start the production for the flowers. The mood that I'm aiming for are relaxing, calming. Thus, I use the color of ash blue and midnight purple for the flowers

Plan B

For this installation, I have changed the planning for the production. Due to some technical limitations, the heartbeat sensor could not detect the heartbeat of users in a stable mode. I have replaced the sensor with ultrasonic sensor. Also, the sensor can be found and will not get spoilt easily.

Instead of combining total of 5 flowers together including the stepper motor and led lights, I separate the interaction into multiple interactions. This is to reduce the technical risk during the actual exhibition as the wire gets burnt easily during my experimentations with the stepper motor.

Plans:

Light Interaction - User interact with one sensor and it will light up the flowers with heartbeat pulsing light effect. (10 flowers)

Motor Interaction - There will be other flowers attached on the motor. (5 flowers) Each flowers have their own sensor to control the motor and specific led lights. 

Experimentations on the light effect

slower down pulsing effect

Pulsing Light Effect

More hype light effect

Different placement of led lights

Synchronous movement

lights glowing synchronously 

light glowing synchronously with random colors

Non-Synchronous movement

light glowing non-synchronously 

Technical Failures

Critics

The overall experience is not good as users have to stand on one exact place for the interaction. There is no surprises for the interaction. Also, users have requested to interact with different sets of flowers for a better experience after the usability test.

Plan C

Create different sets of flowers that have different interactions. Estimated 10 flowers with 3 motor flowers, 2 flowers made of fabric (light), and 5 flowers made of crepe papers (light).

Process

I have created 3 sets of interaction with the motors, 3 sets of interactions with the light animations.

I have also modelled and 3D printed the flower bud for the finishing so that it looks more aesthetic and more complete.

Connector to make connections and disconnections easily

To make things more secure and ease the attachment of the wirings, I have redo and replaced the connections on the breadboard with connectors. This is to reduce the risk of unstable connections during the actual exhibition.

Wire diagram for the connections

Draft 1

Draft 2

Draft 2 was picked with the recommendation of lecturers.

3D printed the casing for ultrasonic sensor and created connectors based on the wire diragram

Process

Plan D

I start to include the motor interaction, I suddenly realize the noise of the motor and the experience when interacting with the flower with motor has downgraded the overall user experience. Another point is that all the flowers are already blooming, but 3 of the motor flowers are closing without lights. When user interacts, the flowers bloom unaesthetically, maybe due to my current limited technical skills. Moreover, the speaker couldn't cover the noise of the motor.

Although my previous effort and money was wasted on creating flowers with 5 motors, I have to change the plan again as I feel the experience is not there. The motor interaction does not enhance the experience but downgraded the mood and feel with the noise. Thus, I change the entire installation into a complete light installation.

Interaction 

Initially, the flowers pulses with a pulsing light effect in a very subtle manner. When users step near the flowers, it will start to change to another light animation. Different sets of flowers have different light effects. Meanwhile, I have inserted a LED chip beneath the fiber optic and inserted on the flowers made with fabric. This is because the fabric doesn't work well with the LED strips.