Final Project Idea

Submitted 11/14/06: "This piece will be called alchemical fire. The idea comes from a short story a friend of mine wrote. As well as an art piece entitled “Fireflies” where fireflies were emulated with LED’s in a jar. The piece will contain several jars that will react to proximity and motion. The will emit both sound and light. The light will be diffused by the glass jar or by some other means. The light will be created using pulse width modulation and different colored LED’s. The piece will contain several of these jars in a dimly lit area.
As a person approaches a jar it will glow slightly through use of a proximity sensor and LED’s. The LED’s will pulse slightly as they approach. This pulse should have an organic feel much like fireflies. If the user picks up the light will no longer pulse but remain dim. If the user swirls the jar the light will increase in intensity. The faster one swirls the jar the brighter the light will glow. If the user puts the jar down it will eventually fade out. A speaker will emit soothing sine waves when the jar is swirled. The sounds will be set up in harmonics so they will always blend well. The resulting outcome will be a song of different sine waves and colors."

Updates: I am no longer using mason jars. I am looking into using treated acrylic containers or scientific flasks. I will also add different sounds and lighting behaviors for different motions.

Need: Some type of accelerometer and QPROX sensor.