W10: Applications and Implications

What will it do?

It'll be a portable dark room inside which lights move in manually-controlled or automated fashion, so that its movement can be captured through a small hole with long exposure photography to create what's known as "light painting".

This is an example I've shot in an actual dark room. In this example, I didn't have any actual control of the lights, which makes for interesting photography, but in this case I'm looking for a machine which has actual control of the lights:

Who has done what beforehand?

I've seen there have been some other projects around light painting in Fab Academy. For example this one made during Fab Academy 2017 by Ana Cabral, Ola Mirecka and Birkir Thor:

Or this one, which is somewhat similar:

Still, even if they are based on similar principles, the outcomes and very different.

What will you design?

I will need to design the container box, the spinning artifact, the electro-mechanical device(s) to make it move and the board to control all inputs and outputs.

What materials and components will be used?

I'm thinking the main materials will be plywood, plexiglas and PLA. As for components, the current idea is to modify a FabKit to suit my purposes, so it'll be an ATMEGA 328 and a few SMD resistors, capacitors and LEDs. I also need some sort of motor and a strip of programmable LEDs like the NeoPixels.

Where will they come from?

Digikey will provide the components and the local hardware stores can provide wood and plexiglas. I'm sure I'll end up ordering stuff from Amazon too, as that'll be the fastest given the current situation.

How much will they cost?

I think a ball park figure should be around 75€ - 100€. The LEDs will probably be the most expensive part, although wood can also ramp up if things go wrong.

What parts and systems will be made?

• The box
• The board and its connections
• The motor and gears
• The lighting system

What processes will be used?

• Additive manufacturing
• Substractive manufacturing
• Computer controlled cutting
• Embedded Programming

What questions need to be answered?

• How will signal and power be passed over spinning axles?
• What's the right size of the box to enable focus?
• What's the right spinning speed?
• What's the right brightness level?

How will it be evaluated?

I'll be following spiral development, roughly thinking in these terms:

1. Proof of concept: connnecting motor and LEDs to a board and control them.
2. Design and make a box to test size and integration
3. Electro-mechanical design: gears, motor and spinning axis connections
4. UI and programming tests
5. Final integration and programming