Technical Investigation 1

Objectives: Investigate functionality of lanterns with dimmer switch. Prototype map showing presentation sisters locations throughout the world with LED's.

The Lantern

For the purpose of tampering with the lantern and performing bodystorming we sourced these led lanterns. Although aesthetically they do not meet the needs of the finished piece (lantern of the 1700's), they are ideal for this stage of the project.

The lanterns are battery operated, they take 3 AA batteries. 

The enclosure at the bottom of the lantern was easily opened, there is a twisty cap and the inner electronics are exposed by cracking off a thin layer of plastic and then are simply screwed out. The crevice would fit further technology, perhaps and arduino nano/mini, a sensor?

The dial is connected to a board that has the positive and negative wires connected to the receptive ends of the battery pack. A potentiometer will determine the brightness of the led. Next step is to hook this up to a computer board.

See here - Arduino tutorial, led controlled by potentiometer, from off, to fully bright.

This investigation resulted in the realisation that there is enough space in the lantern for technology to be embedded, various analogue inputs can determine analogue outputs(ie. the installations)  

Nano's Legacy Map

This is the first installation to be prototyped and tested. This installation depicts Nano's legacy, as the main lantern dims down (signifying her death) the various south presentation sister colleges gradually light up.

For the purpose of prototyping I drew the world map on a 16x12 canvas and then popped the led pins through the front. As a material the canvas could be used in the final piece, the led's sit in a fixed position and the canvas is ideal for drawing/painting on. Other considerations for the material included styrofoam, cardboard, wooden board.

A 1.0K ohm resistor is attached to the positive (long) pin and then connected to the arduino on the analogue output pins.
The negative pin is put to ground.

I ran various scripts to program how the led's would light up and concluded that as one led brightens another does and another and so on until all lights are on was the best, however this was just my interpretation, the various scripts are saved and can be tested on users.