Arduino Workshop II

In my group we decided to make a light sensitive selfregulationg curtain.

Next time we will use a little time to color coordinate the chords, I think :)

The prototype was just a small curtain on the table. We were annoyed with the strong light that sometimes hit our drawing desks making it difficult to see the computer screen or draw evenly. In the studio we do already have curtains, but you have to get up and put them down manually (not really such a big problem though, but hey, we had to come up with an idea!) and the biggest problem was that they shut all the light out so the choice was between burning hot table or bad lighting.

The material used is "chalk-paper", birch plywood and string. Every vertical sheet is connected to a small motor and a light sensor. This way the light sensors could be placed in different areas of the table/room so that the sheets/curtain would turn individually according to the need for shadow.

Unfortunately the day of the demonstration there was no sun light so we calibrated the curtain to turn at a much lower light intensety to still be able to show it's possibilities.

Turning individually

After some calibration we got them to turn together.

It is a one way machine though. It only responses to light and doesn't give something back in return. It's not a interactive piece, just a funny gadget.