Concept 1 – Self Supporting Large LED Sculpture
The first project concept that I would like to propose for my final project is inspired by the light sculptures of Makoto Tojiki and Jun Ong (displayed below). Both of their works are a form of light sculpture, using light emitting elements to define a form. The use of light emitting elements makes the sculptures stand out more and make piece more impactful.
For my project I propose making an LED sculpture, composed of nodes with LEDs housed in a 3D printed support structure inside of ping pong balls connected by bamboo skewers. The support structures would be generated with a script from a low poly stl model, designed to fit inside ping pong balls and have bamboo skewers slot in. The ping pong balls would diffuse the LED’s light. Each of the LEDs would be controllable with a 1-wire interface and have power and ground run to each node.
To test the concept I made a script to generate the support structures for the nodes. Starting with a stl mesh it outputs all of the necessary support structures for the sculpture. Below the starting stl and output support structures are shown.
Concept 2 – Light Painting with Robot Arm
The second project concept that I would like to propose for my final project is inspired by the light sculptures of Autodesk Pier 9, University of Michigan, and Gianluca Pugliese (displayed below). All of their works use a form of light painting with CNC control to create their pieces, resulting in geometric lines and precise control over the final result.
For my project I propose using the ABB arm in Washburn to make a light painting video of a mesh while rotating the position of the camera around the arm drawing to see the 3D motion of the arm and the machine shop in the background. This would be done by attaching an LED to the ABB arm and taking a lot of long exposure pictures around the arm to make video frames.
To test the concept I got an introduction to the ABB arm, took a test long exposure photo of my friend drawing a circle, and tried making a panoramic time lapse video.
