My idea was to create a sculpture that would react to the movement of a cello bow. The initial concept was to make it work with ultrasonic sensor and TouchDesigner.
After some tests with TouchDesigner and after doing some research, I realized that analog mediums such as reflections from mirrored film and its movement can generate more unpredictable and random designs, and so I've decided to take this direction.
My first physical prototype included:
- ultrasonic sensor
- servo, moving the platform with the propeller
- propeller based on a motor of a model airplane
- sculpture based on noodles
- 1 performer (cellist)
- 1 projector
- 1 mirrored foil
- battery for Arduino
- battery and transformer from 12 to 5 V for motor+propeller
later on I understood that iridescent film can give more colorful and beautiful result than mirrored foil and this way I can replace projector by a simple lamp.
So here is setup 2:
- ultrasonic sensor
- servo, moving the platform with the propeller
- propeller based on motor of model aeroplane
- sculpture based on noodles
- 1 performer (cellist)
- 1 lamp
- 1 foil of iridiscent film
- battery for Arduino
- battery and trasformer from 12 to 5 V for motor+propeller
after finalizing basic materials, I've started to design sculpture based on noodles
after doing some tests, I realized that the motor with a propeller maks too much noise. So I've decided to keep only the ultrasonic sensor and servo with a flashlight. However, to recover the movement influence from the motor, I increased the intensity of the movement of the light. For this purpose, I installed the flashlight on the servo in a semi-fixed way (it was fixed on one point, but could move in the air with a certain amplitude). And it was enough.
So, here is the final setup:
Arduino Nano
battery for Arduino
ultrasonic sensor
servo, moving a slat with light
1 flashlight for the movement
noodle sculpture
2 foils of iridiscent film
1 performer (cellist)
1 lamp for general lighting
and the final video:
