“Firelight” Lantern
Posted: February 11, 2013 Filed under: Art, Creations, Explorations, That Totally Worked | Tags: art, fire, flame, flames, lantern, LED, LEDs, light, lights Leave a commentThis past January (2013), I created “Firelight”, a lantern that shines with the light of a simulated fire.
The lantern contains over a hundred LEDs, a microcontroller, a battery pack, and custom software. The software monitors the remaining power in the batteries, and as the voltage slowly runs down, the flames burn lower, finally dying into embers as the batteries die.
I presented the Firelight lantern at the Veracode winter Hackathon, where I lit it, and then gently blew on the coals to kindle a flame. I’ve had a few requests to build more of these lanterns for other people, and I’m considering it, but haven’t made a decision yet. More pictures are here.
-Mark
The Lightning Tree: Halloween
Posted: November 1, 2012 Filed under: Creations, Explorations, That Totally Worked | Tags: arduino, art, blinky, DIY, fastspi, fastspiled, Halloween, LED, LEDs, light, TLT Leave a commentOver this past summer, I built “The Lightning Tree” — a 13-foot-tall steel and aluminum tree covered in hundreds of programmable LEDs. Normally, The Lightning Tree slowly cycles through animations depicting the different seasons of the year, but for Halloween I reprogrammed it full of wild purples and oranges, and planted it in our front yard!
It attracted and delighted kids and grown-ups throughout Halloween night, but the time the sun rose, it had disappeared, like all things ephemeral and magic. (To be clear: it disappeared in a good way, as Black Rock City does.)
“Five Elements” light sculpture
Posted: July 3, 2012 Filed under: Creations, DIY, Explorations, That Totally Worked | Tags: arduino, blinky, creations, decor, DIY, glow, glowy, LED, LEDs, light, RGB, sculpture 3 CommentsAfter months of work, “Five Elements”, my first full light sculpture debuted this weekend at a private event. This quick video shows a short clip of each ‘element’; the actual five-element cycle is 12 minutes long, repeating each of the five elements five times each hour. As with any “version 1.0”, I have a dozen ways I’d like to polish and keep improving it, but I’m happy with it as is, too.
It’s illuminated by 150 RGB LEDs and controlled by an Arduino Uno using the FastSPI_LED library and my own custom code.
The installation at the debut event used a very different diffuser which made the LEDs more visible. While both were good, I think I prefer this diffuser overall.
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