I used some steel wire to make a makeshift person, and hot glued some pieces to keep him stable. I took Matt’s suggestion of having some black back panels so that the illusion shows through more clearly. Incorporating two strobe lights could be helpful, except with the specific frequency I’d need to match the light up with the water drops, two even slightly out of sync strobe lights would ruin the illusion. I will instead only set up one in front of the piece.

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An industrial strobe light able to flash 60 times a second, which is the frequency I’d need for the illusion to work, would be fairly expensive and large (if anyone knows of any, though, let me know) but I could make one with a 555 timer circuit and use that instead. I found a circuit design for one, shown below. I have a bit of experience soldering and putting together circuits, but this is a bit intimidating and could definitely pose some unexpected challenges.

I can order the protoboard and I have some capacitors, resistors, and transistors, I’d just need to get a few white LEDs and the 100k potentiometer.

The other major component of my project not in the maquette is a water pump. I’m not sure if an oscillating pump is necessary for the illusion to work, as to my understanding the dripping water does need to have a fairly consistent rate. I’m hoping I can get a tip for the end of the tubing that will create the dripping with a small fountain pump.

Materials:

round-nose jewelry pliers

protoboard

potentiometer

water pump

NE555

bright white LEDs

I have a couple hundred feet of 24 gauge galvanized steel wire that should be more than enough for the sculpture part.

The case I can make from wood from the makerspace, and I can spray paint the walls black and cover the bottom piece with a black plastic sheet for the water.

The more I look into each aspect of this project, the more I psych myself out thinking I may have overestimated my abilities and underestimated the difficulty of executing it. Essentially every element is something I am very new to, but it is also really cool to be learning about all of it and getting to figure it out. I originally thought the wire sculpture portion of this would be the most involved and time consuming part, but now with the strobe circuit and possible pump issues, the wire sculpture has more become a side aspect in the creation process. On that same note, if anyone has any tips or knowledge about the water dripping and strobe light, let me know! 🙂

I expect that my original plan and my final product will have some major differences. I expect to have to rework a lot of my ideas, but I think my rough schedule gives enough time in between working on each element that the finished product will still be something cool that I am proud of. The dates weren’t chosen specifically, it was more to visually block out how much time I have. In the week of the 27th I have mentally added “rethink everything about everything.”