The hardest part of my project was making an animated lantern. I started off with the following concept of having a spherical lantern that would have a spinning component within it.

I started off trying to emulate a traditional spinning lantern. This involved a rotating drum with images that would spin around a pin in the center. I followed several tutorial Youtube videos that were based on this concept, including the one below:

It took me at least 2 hours of trial and error to actually get the spinning mechanism to work. This may have partly been due to the fact that everything was so haphazardly put together for a prototype.

While the prototype worked, I realized 3 problems with this mechanism:

1. It needed a stable set up in order to spin properly.
2. However, I envisioned the lantern to be hung in air. Would it spin without a stable base? How do I hang it so that the spinning component achieves the right balance to spin?
3. The spherical lantern shape introduced a lot of constraints for an already finicky mechanism.

The lantern shape in particular was an obstacle to work with. I decided against my original idea to paper mache a sphere to use as the moon. This is because I looked up DIY tutorials for the concept and thought that my time would be better spent working on other technical components of the project. Additionally, I didn’t see any results that particularly motivated me or stood out to me. Instead, I decided to buy white paper lanterns from Amazon that I could paint over to look like the moon. This meant that my lantern shape was predetermined. Additionally, the lantern has a wire frame inside it to keep it spherical. This wire frame added additional obstructions.

I decided to try projecting an image onto the lantern instead, using a spare lens that my housemate had. A light bulb would illuminate a drawing which would be projected through a lens.

However, the lens did not magnify the image at all. I think it actually made it smaller.

I really wanted the moon lantern to operate more traditionally rather than electronically; however, these two failed attempted made me test out using an Arduino and mini-servo to have the man move inside the lantern. The servo was easy to hook up and I found a sweep code online: https://www.arduino.cc/en/Tutorial/LibraryExamples/Sweep/

I attached a cutout of a man’s silhouette to the servo and put it inside the lantern. I think this effect is the one that I am happiest with and will proceed with.

My next steps for the moon lantern are to:

1. Create a sturdier version of the silhouette, its attachment, and servo attachment
2. Paint the tree
3. Paint the lantern to resemble a moon
4. Conceal the wiring for the light bulb and servo

I’ve also started working on the stepping stone lanterns! I bought the fabric for them which I am very excited to use and am in the process of creating the shape for the lanterns.