LEDTensegrity

Interactive, Tangible, Dance, Making, 3D Printing




LEDTensegrity is a smart toy I worked on as part of a team during my Global innovation design degree. It is an interactive toy which changes colors according to movement, created to be used for long exposure photography as well a recreation game for kids which can help overcome fear of darkness. The toy was created using an Arduino together with NEOPixels LED strip and accelerometers. It was coded using C. I worked mostly on creating the board and the coding.

The brief asked us to think about future intelligent toys that can monitor and change human behaviour by playing with ideas, blend them with electronics and experiment with human-machine interaction. We were inspired by the Star Wars ‘Lightsabers’ (the fictional energy sword), which some people use to do long exposure photos. Our toy offers a range of colors to produce even more playful light painted images. The light is used to investigate the effects of visual to realise contrasting atmospheres at night or in darkness. The tool attracts and establishes a relationship of interaction with the viewer, inviting them to use their hands and body to animate its lights, through movement.

In the gallery bellow you can see LEDTensegrity in display at the RCA Work in Progress (WIP) show, together with some long exposure photos that were taken using the toy as well as photos from the development process.



Year: 2017
Location: London, United Kingdom
Collaborators: Sean Wang, Dana Alami, Hazuki
Duration: 1 month
Skills & Tools used: Arduino, C++, 3D printing, prototyping, Sensors

The toy





Long exposure photographs






The process


Concept





Prototyping





Testing