TOUCH THE LIGHT
Physical Interaction Exploration

It was a self-initiated project which I start with the motivation of learning more about physical computing, seeing how it would be to create both software and hardware which works together, and exploring what interaction with a machine/device could be beyond pushing buttons, touching screens, or waving to proximity sensors. My initial ambition was to create a responsive fabric material woven out of conductive rubber cord, a flexible material changes resistance when stretched. So everything would be more honest, and we would be interacting with the material itself. But that didn’t happen because I couldn’t get the material to work stable enough. So it ended up being waving to a proximity sensor again, but it was fun trying:D

Evrim Şahin, my beloved physical computing instructor from bachelors, was mentoring and helping me figure out things along the way.

2015 | Self Initiated | 8 weeks on free time

Designboom LED Life, Finalist

Each surface corresponding to one of the red, green and blue channels

Mixing up and creating different hues for the light

It was a lot of trial and error in the process. Especially with the conductive rubber cord that I was planning to create a woven fabric surface. Although it didn’t work out for this project, it is a cool material check it out here if you are interested. I was also looking for a easy to use/ beginners tool to plan the circuit. Frizting is pretty nice for that.

Here are the components that I have used. Let me know if you want to recreate this project and I can share the Arduino code lying somewhere on my hard drive :D
Ultrasonic Ranging Modules- HC - SR04Transistors | IRFZ44N Metal Oxide Semiconductor Field EffectTransistors | BD 135 NPN Bipolar Junction transistors x 3Heatsinks for transistorsPower Supply 100W Single Output Switching Power SupplyFLB6 RGB Color Series Strip LEDSingle color LED’s, red-green-blue22K resistors & 1 μF Capacitors

Conductive rubber trials

Starting small with the circuit

Some planning with Fritzing

Freshly homemade switch