I decided to settle on my Sundial idea. With a couple of people already doing cool projects with Tech and LEDs, I thought it would be fun to try my hand at something slightly more interesting to me, which is the use of Shadows.
So, just as a sort of brief test of how the shadows would work with the shapes I wanted to make, I made some cutouts and used the flashlight from my phone to make shadows. In future tests, I’d need to use like a nice desk lamp, but I don’t have one, so I’m planning on grabbing one next time I’m out.
The cutouts:
So I tried to layer them all together in a triangle style like this:
Which didn’t really produce the effect that I wanted. So I’m gonna have to go back to the drawing board a bit. I’ll probably use more of a Y formation for the final version, but I need to find a nice way of combining the three silhouettes to make that work.
Also, the final version will likely be 3D printed, so I need to look into how I can go about using WPI’s 3D printing services (I tried asking some friends, but they’ve never used it, ha.) Worse comes to worst I’ll hit up Shapeways with some 3D models I make. The only issue is it would be harder to play with the actual shape between trials.
Shopping list/Useful Components:
– An actual light source.
– Potentially an Arduino setup that will allow me to rotate that lightsource around the piece.
– An Exacto-knife (for more cardboard trials)
– A pedestal for the piece to go on.
I’ll probably need more things, but that’s all I can think of at the moment.