Final Project - Modular light for better sleep

Video

Shade

-3D vacuumed formed curvy shape

design on rhino
mill foam mold with modela and shopbot
vacuum form

My first trial was with modela.
It took long time to mill out.
Noticed that small mold does not work well in vacuum forming, then
decided to make a larger mold with  shopbot

With white foam.
Milling went super nice, but it
ended up with melting and attaching with HDPE in vacuum forming.
Spent several hours to take it out with the minimum break.
Finally, it was taken off, but the mold surface was broken...

Then, my second trial was another foam(pink).
Glued two layers of foams to obyain 2 inch height and makde them dry up (one night).
Milling another mold and made the surface smooth with glugun and painted geceo on the surface.

Many trials with mistakes, one the way, 2 layers foams were separated... glued again.
Finally relatively satisfying stuffs came up.
I tried several different materials for shade.

Vacuum forming is very hard to contoll the best parameters (timing, heat level).
Tried many times to acquire the sense.

Electronics

[Input]
phoyotransistor: adjust LED brightness
accelerometer: monitor sleep
proximinity sensor:control the color of LED

[Output]
High brightness LED
RGB LED
Sleep behavior files

We didn't have a eagle library file for accelometer, so designed the library for eagle.
Designed boards for accelerometer and phototransistor.
Used copper tape for LED circuits.
Connected all sensors with fabduino

Software

On arduino, I programmed controlling LED color and brightness
with PWM bsaed on time and proximity sensor inputs.
 blue(in the morning)
-> green
-> red (yellow) at night

On Attiny168, we can use PMW on pins with OC.... (see ATmega168).
On those pins, "analogWrite(pin #, 0-255);" works.

Accelerometer data is sent to processing to draw a graph and save sleep
behaviral files.

Using proximity sensor, reaching the sensor out,
we can toggle the LED color (R->G->B->GB).

The final project update (week 12)

Modular Lighting for light therapy

Lastweek, 

-ordered super bright LEDs, sensors (accelerometer) and memory shape alloy.
-designed modules with Rhino

designed six edges of modules that can connect each other
and develop various shapes
If I have time, I want to vacuum forning to make a 3D modules as well.

-cut them with waterjet and laser cutters
-tried various materials and tested whether materials can bent (paper, plastic, polystyrene, HDPE)

Firstly, I cut plastic and paper with lasercut, but it smelled very badly.
Plastic was too hard to bend and the edge of papers got burned.
So decided to test water jet to cut polystyrene and HDPE.
I reviewed how to use it (Thanks, Tom).
The problem was how to fix flappy thin material.
We put a wood board
The setting missed one part of cutting
We tried again and this time we attach a sheet of polystylene to a wood board with double sided tape.
Fix worked well, but the cut edge was not beautiful.
I ended up going back to the lasercut to cut polystyrene and HDPE and
left them for a while to let all bad smelly air away.

-prototyped shades 

This week.

-design circuits for LEDs
-integrate input sensors (accelerometer, phototransistor) with arduino
-programing for LED and input sensors
-visualization for accelerometer and phototransistor
-integrate all system

-make molding for another modules (if time permits)
-vacuum forming (if time permits)

The final project proposal (week 11)

Modular Light

what will it do?

Geometric modular lighting 
each piece has a LED or a circuit

connection of pieces can make various shapes of lighting and make LED light

each piece has a photo-transistor and controlls
the brightness based on the outer ambient light

has clock inside and controlls
the brightness based on the outer ambient intensity of light.

(if I have time,
want to add other sensors e.g. IR or capasitive sensor)
      
Previous Work










what's been done before?

Learned input/output
Made and programmed a board with a phototransistor and LEDs
Made Fabduino

checking materials
-Paper
-Accrylic
-Polystyrene
-High Density Polyethylene(HDPE)

thinking about the module shape

module: ellipse or a module like module origami

what will you need to develop?

designing a module
cutting modules

designing circuit
vynelcutting circuit
mounting components

building modules

itterate prototyping

what will be done when?

12/5- prototype of shade and circuit and testing
12/12- integrate

what materials and components will be needed?
what will it cost?

-shade
--paper
--accrylic
--polystyrene
--high Density Polyethylene(HDPE)


-electric components & sensors
--white/RGB LED
--ATtiny
--phototransistor
--IR sensor/capasitive sensor
--Power Supply

-diffuser?

update the final project proposal (week 3)

what's the goal?

Affective flower

To develop lighting system that can change light intensity to control
out biological clock, and change its shape and act as a avatar 
to show sleep-wake behavioral patterns.

• sense enviroment (light intensity and human behavior)
• change light intensity and its shape based on time, enviroment and human sleep-wake behavioral patterns

what's the prior art?

what are the systems and components?

• LED
• Shape-memory alloy/polymer
  

• Color sensor to detect RGB and light intensity.
  
• IR sensors to detect human behaviors.
  

what questions will you need to answer?

• Is there any other good metaphor than flowers?
• What kind of material should I use?
• How can I control the shape with Shape-memory alloy/polymer?
• How much does it cost?

Initial Ideas for final Project (Sep 14 2011)

For the final project of this class, I want to make furniture
which we can build with small pieces of snap parts and
 change shape easily or lighting system that
changes its shape and the intensity of light based on
human behaviors.